Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

The Secretary of State was asked—

Visitors' Visas (Bombay)

Mr. Keith Vaz: If he will make a statement on the issuing of visitors' visas in Bombay. [54285]

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Derek Fatchett): In 1997, the visa section in the British deputy high commission in Bombay issued 43,318 visit visas. Up to 15 October this year, the visa section had issued 45,339 visit visas. Ninety-two per cent. of the straightforward visit visa applications are being issued within 24 hours. Currently, applicants are receiving their visas within two hours of presenting their application.

Mr. Vaz: Will the Minister pass on hon. Members' thanks to Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean for the changes that she introduced to the visa system to make it more efficient? However, as he must be aware, a large proportion of applications made in Bombay come from people who live in the Gujarat. Will he meet me and other interested colleagues to see whether visa facilities might be made available in Ahmadabad? Such facilities would greatly improve the position, lessening the pressure on Bombay and making the process much easier and much cheaper for applicants.

Mr. Fatchett: I shall certainly convey my hon. Friend's best wishes to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. She will be delighted to hear those words from my hon. Friend. I know that he keeps her busy on immigration and visa matters, so his words of support will be well received.
On the second point that my hon. Friend raised, I would be happy to meet him and his colleagues, although he must realise that, even to such a distinguished Member as himself, I cannot make a commitment at the Dispatch Box.

Mr. Eric Forth: If a visa application were made in Bombay by, let us say, a former dictator or former terrorist, would such an application be

sympathetically considered by the Minister, and if it were granted, would it carry with it any immunity from rogue applications for extradition from this country?

Mr. Fatchett: Any visa application made at the deputy high commission in Bombay will be dealt with according to the immigration rules.

Sudan

Rev. Martin Smyth: What progress has been made towards a permanent peaceful settlement in Sudan. [54286]

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Derek Fatchett): The UK has long supported the Intergovernmental Authority on Development peace process as the best chance to bring an end to the civil war in Sudan through a negotiated settlement. With a mandate from the IGAD partners forum, I visited Nairobi and Khartoum from 13 to 16 July to discuss the possibilities of securing a break in the fighting in the areas most affected by the humanitarian crisis.
Subsequently, the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Army announced a three-month ceasefire in Bahr al Ghazal. Following further discussions on 9 and 12 October respectively, the SPLA and the Government of Sudan agreed to extend the ceasefire in Bahr al Ghazal by a further three months. We shall continue to be active in trying to find a long-term solution to the conflict.

Rev. Martin Smyth: I welcome the Minister's response. He will be aware that, today, the aid organisations warned us that we might have a greater catastrophe than in Kosovo if something did not happen shortly to help people in Sudan. Is there any more recent information that would enable the Foreign Office to confirm the claims of the American State Department, corroborated by the Ministry of Defence, that the factory in Khartoum was a chemical factory—or does the Minister agree that the bombing of that factory may not have helped to advance the peace process in Sudan?

Mr. Fatchett: I very much respect the hon. Gentleman's interest in the issue of Sudan. He is right to say that the only way to deal with the long-term humanitarian problem is to achieve a political solution. That is one reason why I took a more active interest in the matter in the summer of this year. I hope that the United Kingdom, with others, can continue to play a more active role.
On chemical weapons in Sudan, the best way to verify the situation would be for Sudan to sign the chemical weapons convention.

Mr. Bill O'Brien: May I express my appreciation of the efforts that the Minister of State and the Secretary of State have made to bring about a settlement in Sudan? Our concerns are with the women and children in southern Sudan, who are suffering the most as a result of the conflict in their country; the recent bombing by America did not help the situation. However, will my hon. Friend assure the House that he


will do all that he can to bring about a negotiated settlement to the problems in Sudan, so that we can be of more help to the people there who are suffering as a result of the conflict in their country?

Mr. Fatchett: Sadly, we are seeing a continuation of the civil war that has been going on for several decades. It is clear that the only way forward is to find a peaceful solution. There cannot be a military solution to the civil war in Sudan. We must encourage the parties to get to the negotiating table. That is why we support the IGAD process, and why the United Kingdom is keen to play any part we can to assist the negotiations and to help towards peace. As my hon. Friend says, that is the best way to give a long-term future to the people of Sudan, who have suffered too much and for too long.

Mr. Bowen Wells: May I thank the Minister for the work that he has put into trying to find a solution to the civil war in Sudan? In view of the news that Sudan has resumed bombing in the south, and the fact that, other than at Bahr al Ghazal, the fighting has intensified in recent weeks, could he find a way to bring about the support of the United States and the United Nations for urgent action to prevent the continuation of the tragic starvation in that area?

Mr. Fatchett: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments about my role. It was important in July to look for a way to achieve a partial ceasefire. It is temporary and covers only part of Sudan, but, for the many thousands of people in that area, it gives slight relief and the possibility of a longer life. We must extend those principles to the whole of Sudan and get the parties together. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about the United States and the United Nations. The entire international community has neglected Sudan for too long and we have a responsibility to do what we can.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Mr. Mike Gapes: If he will make a statement on Government plans to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights. [54287]

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Tony Lloyd): Five decades after the universal declaration of human rights was signed, it remains an inspiration and a common standard of achievement for all nations and all peoples.
We are celebrating the anniversary with other Governments, the United Nations Association and non-governmental organisations. On the occasion of the anniversary, we have introduced a series of measures to create a closer dialogue between the Foreign Office and NGOs on human rights.

Mr. Gapes: I welcome the action that the Government have taken so far. Does my hon. Friend agree that the universal declaration of human rights is just that: universal? It should therefore apply to all countries, including Malaysia, China, India and Pakistan and countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and north America. [Interruption.] Will my hon. Friend

reassure me that this Government, unlike their predecessor, will adopt universal standards of human rights and emphasise the importance of the United Nations and its institutions?

Mr. Lloyd: I am delighted to join my hon. Friend in doing that. I was rather sorry to hear some barracking from the Opposition Benches about the universal declaration. That highlights the difference between the present Government and their predecessors in their commitment to human rights issues. In every part of the world the universal declaration has played a significant role in improving observance of and respect for human rights, but in every part of the world there are still areas where improvements are needed. Perhaps the finest way in which we could mark the 50th anniversary would be to ensure that the universal declaration is indeed universal.

Mrs. Cheryl Gillan: When making his plans for the anniversary of the declaration of human rights, will the Minister recall that the last Conservative Government had an excellent record on human rights, and that last year and every year for the past 10 years the Conservative Government co-sponsored a UN resolution calling for an improvement in China's human rights situation? Can the Minister explain why his Government have failed to renew that resolution? Does that failure to renew not confirm the accusation by Wei Jingsheng, probably the most famous Chinese prisoner of conscience, that the present Foreign Secretary is two-faced, and show that Labour's supposedly ethical foreign policy is hypocritical and spineless? Will the Government support that resolution when it comes back to the next UN meeting?

Mr. Lloyd: That is a very good try, but it is a shame that the Conservatives must make human rights a matter of party politics. The reality is that, when the resolution went through, the European Union nations were split. The Conservatives know that. Under the present Government and the present Foreign Secretary, we have a united European Union position with respect to China. We have seen progress in China, and Mary Robinson and the Prime Minister recently visited that country. Unlike the situation under the previous Government, the human rights debate with China is now on-going.

Ann Clwyd: Is my hon. Friend aware of newspaper reports today that suggest that the Foundation for Human Rights in the EU will close at the end of the year? That is worrying news for non-governmental organisations all over the world, including Redress Trust, the London-based charity that, among other things, deals with the victims of torture in Chile. That organisation is likely to lose up to half its funding. Will my hon. Friend act as a matter of urgency to ensure that that does not occur?

Mr. Lloyd: There can be no doubt that NGOs play an important role in maintaining respect for human rights worldwide. It is sad to see a threat to any legitimate organisation operating in that area. I do not know about the particular events leading to the situation that my hon. Friend describes, but I shall take her remarks on board and inquire as to the proper position and how the problem may be resolved.

Kosovo

Jackie Ballard: If he will make a statement on the situation in Kosovo. [54288]

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Robin Cook): Since my statement to the House last week, Britain has remained fully engaged in efforts to implement the Holbrooke package. At the weekend, after hours of intensive negotiation, President Milosevic gave a detailed commitment to reduce the levels of army, police and heavy weapons in Kosovo to their levels before the conflict. Diplomatic observers in Kosovo report that several thousand security troops have left over the past 24 hours.
There has been a significant return of refugees to settlements in the valleys, and the UN estimates that numbers on the hillsides have fallen from 50,000 to around 10,000.
President Milosevic has shown some progress towards meeting the demands of the Security Council, but there is a long way still to go before we secure a self-governing Kosovo with its own elected leadership and free from repression from Belgrade.

Jackie Ballard: I thank the Foreign Secretary for that reply. I am sure that everyone hopes that President Milosevic will continue to pull back from the brink. I am also pleased to hear that thousands of refugees are returning to the valleys. However, anxiety remains about what the international community intends to do to ensure safe and unrestricted access to Kosovo throughout the winter months in order to provide humanitarian aid to the refugees and prevent thousands of deaths from illness and starvation.

Mr. Cook: The hon. Lady is absolutely right to express concern about the position of the refugees. So many of their homes have been destroyed by the actions of the Serb security forces that, although returning from the hillsides may take them nearer to where they once lived, it will not necessarily provide them with shelter. The refugees are still at risk from cold, hunger and disease.
That is why we attach the highest importance to ensuring that humanitarian relief gets through to the refugees and why Britain, in particular, in the past week has provided grants to Care International for winter goods, to Oxfam for winter shelter and to Médecin sans Frontiéres for mobile clinics. We shall continue to play a leading role in the international effort.

Mr. Michael Trend: Is the Foreign Secretary aware, that over the weekend, Alastair Campbell briefed the press in Austria? I have a transcript of that briefing, which said that the Prime Minister would tell the informal summit that
Kosovo showed us far too often to be dithering and disunited".
To ensure that the Government can no longer be accused of prolonging that dithering, will the Foreign Secretary inform the House for how long NATO forces will be maintained at their current and commendable state of readiness?

Mr. Cook: I assure the hon. Gentleman that Britain played a leading part in building unity both in NATO and

in the contact group. If this country had not shown that leadership in securing agreement for the diplomatic track in the contact group—backed by a credible threat from NATO—we would not have made the progress that I have just reported to the House.
The North Atlantic Council is meeting to hear reports about progress on compliance, and I think that it is likely to conclude that Milosevic has made progress but has a long way to go yet. Therefore, I think that it is quite likely that we will resolve that we must keep our guard up. It is not yet the time to let that guard down.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: If, as appears possible, it may not now be necessary to use the attack aircraft of NATO's air forces, would it not make sense to use NATO's transport aircraft to help to meet the priorities already established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees? Is it not the case that, in communities that were first razed to the ground and then looted, it is not only food and blankets that are required but medicines, equipment to restore essential services such as electricity and water, agricultural implements and building materials? If necessary, should we not have a Kosovo airlift to prevent the humanitarian disaster which we all dread?

Mr. Cook: I can certainly assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that, if the United Nations should approach us for support in the transport of goods to Kosovo, we would be very willing to consider that sympathetically because we would not want essential goods not to get through because of the lack of logistics. One of the reasons that we are anxious to get the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe verification mission up and running on the ground is precisely so that we can have those members of that team in every village and town, not merely to stand by and observe but robustly to intervene and make sure that they broker access to humanitarian goods and that the people of Kosovo are given the chance to come through this winter.

Chile

Mr. Eric Pickles: If he will make a statement on the UK's relations with Chile. [54290]

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Robin Cook): I met the Deputy Foreign Minister of Chile, Mr. Mariano Fernandez, on Saturday. I explained to the Minister that the Government of Britain had no power to intervene in the court proceedings concerning Senator Pinochet, and nor would it be proper for us to direct the police in the execution of a magistrate's warrant. I also stressed to Mr. Fernandez the determination of the Government to prevent these legal procedures from undermining our excellent relations with the democratic Government of Chile.

Mr. Pickles: Will the right hon. Gentleman join me in congratulating the people of Chile on the smooth transition from dictatorship to a robust democracy? Does he agree that one of the most remarkable features of that is that opponents of the former regime worked side by side with people who supported it, forswearing individual


acts of violence, to build a strong and robust democracy in Chile? Does the right hon. Gentleman understand that that balance between opponent and supporter is a fine one and that outside influences are not welcome in that process? If he agrees with that, has he had an opportunity over the past fortnight to pass on that view to other members of the Government?

Mr. Cook: Of course there is a fine balance in direct conciliation and accommodation in Chile. That fine balance includes 14 current prosecutions outstanding against Senator Pinochet.
Of course we warmly welcome the progress of Chile and many other countries of Latin America towards democracy. One of the important founding stones of democracy is the rule of law and the clear principle that politicians should not decide who is arrested and who is not, and it is that principle that we are upholding in Britain.

Mr. Donald Anderson: I have never had tea and sympathy with General Pinochet, and, having visited Chile during the reign of terror in the early 1980s and seen the way in which the oldest and longest democracy in Latin America had had its democracy subverted, I would never seek to parley with that gentleman. However, our views are surely irrelevant: will my right hon. Friend confirm that, once a proper application had been made under the Extradition Act 1989, we had no option but to let due process proceed?

Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. One of the most curious features of the past few days and the comments on them is the idea that the Bow Street magistrates issuing a warrant and the Metropolitan police executing it somehow adds up to a left-wing conspiracy. The Government are clear: due process of law must be carried out and it must not be warped to fit anybody's political agenda.

Mr. Michael Howard: Is it not correct that the handling of this arrest and the possible extradition of General Pinochet have been bedevilled by chaos and confusion throughout? Why have the Government still not established whether or not the Spanish Government, as opposed to one Spanish judge, are applying for his extradition? Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the Home Secretary had a discretion not to authorise the grant of a warrant and could at that point have taken into account many factors, including the implications of the arrest for the future of democracy in Chile?

Mr. Cook: The right hon. and learned Gentleman wrote to me last week saying that, if an extradition request were made, of course the normal processes and procedures should be followed. It is difficult to see that sentiment in the question that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has just put to me. Of course we have had no contact on the question with the Spanish Government. It would be deeply improper to do so. The extradition request has been processed by entirely competent legal authority in Spain. It is for the Spanish authorities to decide whether they wish to withdraw it, not for us to decide whether we should ignore it. The Home Secretary was entirely proper in allowing the due process of law to

proceed. There was a time when the Conservative party would have prided itself on being the party of the rule of law. It is rather sad that it has now departed from that principle of our constitution.

Mr. Howard: Does the Foreign Secretary not appreciate that the rule of law in this matter includes a discretion for the Home Secretary to take into account factors such as those that I mentioned, before authorising a warrant? On what conceivable basis does the Foreign Secretary allege that it would be improper to ask the Spanish Government whether they, as opposed to one judge, want General Pinochet to be extradited?

Mr. Cook: It is a matter for the Spanish legal authorities to decide whether to proceed with this, just as it is a matter for the British courts to decide how to proceed on it. Of course, areas of discretion are available to the Home Secretary after due process and after the matter has been before the courts. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is really saying that there were occasions when, in secret, he squashed a warrant for extradition, he should tell the House when it was.

European Union Enlargement

Dr. Doug Naysmith: What progress has been made in simplifying the process for those countries seeking to join the European Union. [54291]

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Ms Joyce Quin): The European Union agreed a clear and inclusive enlargement process at Luxembourg last year. Britain has played a key role in pushing forward that process, which was launched during our presidency. It remains on track, and will bring the applicant countries into the Union as soon as they are ready for the demands and the obligations of membership.
On 9 November, the Commission will report on the progress made by all the countries seeking to join. The following day, substantive talks are due to start with the six applicants already in accession negotiations.

Dr. Naysmith: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Following the Foreign Secretary's recent visit to Bulgaria and Romania, is there any progress to be reported on their meeting the criteria for membership?

Ms Quin: Yes, indeed. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary had a useful visit, which included Bulgaria and Romania, and there is no doubt that the prospect of EU membership is a great stimulus in those countries to produce reforms. We welcome some of the progress that they have already made and look forward to further progress in due course.

Mr. William Cash: Does the Minister accept that part of the process towards enlargement necessarily involves questions of democracy? Does she further accept that the whole process of proportional representation, as expressed by a leading politician in The Times on 16 October, clearly shows that proportional representation is regarded by those in the Czech Republic as unhealthy, inequitable and leading to the blackmail of the larger parties by the smaller parties, as in Israel, and


to dissatisfaction, as exists in New Zealand? Will the Minister therefore accept that, whether with regard to the Westminster system of democracy in Britain or the process of European elections, the whole concept in principle of proportional representation is objectionable, for the reasons that I gave?

Mr. Dennis Skinner: I have forgotten what the hon. Gentleman said.

Ms Quin: It certainly was an elaborate supplementary which took us some way away from the enlargement process. Despite that, however. I agree that democracy is a tremendously important—indeed, essential—part of the candidacy of any country for accession to the EU. But with regard to election systems, existing EU members have a variety of systems, and nothing in the enlargement process would alter that.

Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: Has the Minister had an opportunity to consider the impact of the recent elections and referendum in Latvia and the general election in Slovakia? Does she agree that they justify including those countries in the fast-track process of enlargement, especially given that the Latvian impediment was its relationship with the Russian minority, which has been resolved by the consequences of the referendum result?

Ms Quin: The application of each country needs to be regarded on its merits. Like my hon. Friend, I very much welcome the result of the referendum that took place in Latvia and the recent encouraging signs in the Slovakian election results. They show that coming closer to the European Union can stimulate democracy and respect for human rights and ethnic minorities. I very much welcome that.

Mr. John D. Taylor: Is the Minister aware of the news that, during the past week, Greece has placed fighter planes in Cyprus for the first time ever, and that, in January, the Greek Cypriot Government intend to bring in Russian missiles manned by Russian personnel? Is the European Union wise to absorb those problems into the Union before a settlement in Cyprus?

Ms Quin: We regard the accession process in Cyprus as an important factor in applying pressure for a settlement of the Cypriot problem and uniting the island. That is tremendously important. However, we do not want a build-up of weapons in a volatile part of the world, which is why we have expressed serious reservations about missiles in Cyprus.

Agenda 2000

Mr. Jeff Ennis: When he last met his European counterparts to discuss Agenda 2000 and enlargement. [54292]

Ms Rosie Winterton: When he last met his European counterparts to discuss Agenda 2000 in relation to enlargement. [54299]

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Ms Joyce Quin): I last met my European counterparts to discuss Agenda 2000 issues at yesterday's General Affairs Council in Luxembourg.

Mr. Ennis: I thank the Minister for her reply. Is she aware that the current gross domestic product per capita

in South Yorkshire is only 75 per cent. of the European average? Is she further aware that in my constituency that figure falls to 65 per cent? Does she agree that, if this country is successfully to regenerate the most economically deprived regions, it must negotiate extremely hard to try to maximise the amount of European regional assistance that comes to this country under Agenda 2000?

Ms Quin: I very much support my hon. Friend's comments. We generally support the criterion of 75 per cent. of GDP as the threshold for European regional assistance. European funds have already been used to effect in regenerating certain areas of the British economy. We are keen to see that process continue, as it rebounds on the efforts of those regions to the credit of both Britain and the European Union.

Ms Rosie Winterton: Is my hon. Friend aware that the rail port in my constituency of Doncaster provides rail freight services from the north of England to Europe? Does she agree that, to protect the environment and regenerate areas like South Yorkshire, the development of European rail links should be a high priority in any discussions on Agenda 2000 and European Union enlargement?

Ms Quin: I very much agree with my hon. Friend that transport infrastructure is a vital part of the economic development of a region. European transport links make a great deal of sense in the context of the European Union's structural funds and European efforts generally to promote economic development.

Mr. John Bercow: Will the Minister tell the House why so little progress is being made on the financial and other reforms which will be essential if the European Union is to be successfully enlarged? Is it because her Government, and other centre left Governments within the EU, are still obsessed with yesterday's backward-looking agenda of a Europe which is uniform, not diverse; rigid, not flexible; and deeper, not wider?

Ms Quin: The basic premise of the hon. Gentleman's question is simply incorrect. Good progress is being made towards the Agenda 2000 timetable, as was evident from our discussions in Luxembourg yesterday, which ranged over all the issues involved in the negotiations, including financial and budgetary ones.

Mr. Ian Bruce: Does the Minister think that assurances given during enlargement negotiations can be kept to? I have in mind the assurances made by Spain, when it joined the European Union, about its treatment of Gibraltar. Spain is now attacking Gibraltar's fishing rights as well as its border rights, as always. Can she assure us that she takes these matters into account in the discussions on enlargement, and that the Spanish Government will be told, yet again, that they should keep to their assurances over Gibraltar?

Ms Quin: It is certainly important that, in enlargement negotiations, undertakings that are given are implemented in practice. Indeed, a range of mechanisms has been put in place to make sure that the progress of existing


applicants can be monitored through all the different chapters of the accession negotiations. In respect of Gibraltar, the hon. Gentleman might like to know that we recently protested strongly about increased delays at the border. As a result, those delays have been greatly reduced.

Mr. Eric Illsley: When my hon. Friend last met her European counterparts to discuss enlargement, was any attention given to the question of Cyprus being admitted to the European Union as an occupied country, in light of the view held by some of our EU partners that the idea of EU membership as a catalyst to a peace settlement appears to have failed?

Ms Quin: In the General Affairs Council, we have said clearly that we believe that the accession negotiations regarding Cyprus remain an important pressure on reaching a settlement and reunifying the island. That is our view, and we have put it forward strongly. We believe that the accession negotiations represent a real opportunity to make progress, however difficult the problems are.

European Union Enlargement

Mr. Tim Boswell: If he will make a statement on progress in the EU enlargement process. [54293]

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Robin Cook): Britain negotiated the launch of the enlargement process during our presidency, and progress in the accession talks has been good. We expect that next month, we can move from the screening process to substantive negotiations with six of the candidate countries.
Last week, I visited two other candidate countries—Bulgaria and Romania—whose Governments both expressed their warm appreciation of Britain's support for the enlargement of the European Union.

Mr. Boswell: Enlargement in due course is clearly essential for the applicant countries, and much in the interests of this country and of existing member states.

Mr. Cook: indicated assent.

Mr. Boswell: I am pleased to have the Foreign Secretary's acknowledgement of that. Would he resist firmly any further moves towards gratuitous deepening of the Community, on the ground that, if applicant countries already have enough difficulty keeping their footing through the existing acquis communautaire, any further impositions might put them out of their depth altogether?

Mr. Cook: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's point that we should remember that enlargement is also in the interest of the existing member states. It will make the European Union larger, give it greater potential for prosperity and greater clout in world trade talks, and enable us to deal with cross-border problems, such as the environment and cross-border crime. This is not simply a matter of altruism towards the applicant countries—it is in our interest, too—but it is not the case that the applicant countries would oppose what the hon. Gentleman referred

to as further deepening. They want to become members of a full, strong Europe, with integration where necessary and decentralisation wherever possible.

Mr. Ian Pearson: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the five eastern European accession countries, with 63 million people and a gross domestic product of about 400 billion ecu, represent a major addition to the European Union economy and a major opportunity for British companies to extend their home markets? Will he, in conjunction with the Department of Trade and Industry, review the substantial information that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has on markets and market opportunities in those countries, and ensure that it is available to British businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, because too few of them are approaching the FCO about such opportunities at the moment?

Mr. Cook: I have just returned from Bulgaria and Romania. I was struck not only by the opportunity for investment and trade in those countries, but by their desperate need for that investment and trade. Enlargement offers us an economic opportunity, but we must recognise that we cannot maintain a Europe that, although no longer divided by an iron curtain, is divided into the rich nations of the European Union and the poor countries at our gates. That is not sustainable, and we shall suffer from the pressures from illegal migration, the drugs trade and other problems that come from poverty. It is in our interests to assist those countries to achieve our prosperity.

Mr. Michael Howard: Does the Foreign Secretary really believe that deepening integration, increasing spending and moving towards tax harmonisation and a European army—all of which were agreed in Austria last weekend—will help the enlargement process? Is it not clear that there can be deepening or widening of the European Union, but not both? Does he accept that his statement in August that
Maastricht was a high water mark of integration
seems even more ludicrous now than it did then?

Mr. Cook: The right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot complain about the response in Kosovo and yet refuse to apply that lesson for Europe's security. That is exactly what the Prime Minister was drawing to the attention of the leaders of Europe when they met in Pörtschach.
I am not sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman wants to achieve any kind of Europe, but if he wants to build a Europe that is decentralised and that observes the principle of subsidiarity, he should welcome the fact that the debate on the future of Europe was started by Britain. We are focusing on achieving the right balance between decisions on cross-border issues that must be taken in Brussels and decisions on issues that are better taken within member states. The Government are promoting a balance between integration where necessary and decentralisation where possible.

Mr. Alan Simpson: I welcome the Foreign Secretary's comments on enlargement. What assessment has been made of the challenges and


opportunities that enlargement will bring, and of the adequacy of existing EU structural funds? Decisions may need to be taken about extending the scope of such funds.

Mr. Cook: There are substantial programmes to assist countries that are preparing for membership. The pre-accession funds are generous. Yesterday, in the General Affairs Council, we agreed on re-allocation as applicant countries become full members. Structural funds will be available to them as full members. That is why it is important that we proceed with the reform of not just the structural funds, but the common agricultural policy to ensure that we can afford enlargement and that the resources of the European Union go where they can best be used.

Dubai

Mr. Desmond Swayne: If he will make a statement about UK relations with Dubai. [54295]

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Derek Fatchett): Our relations with Dubai are good. As an indicator of that, our trade statistics with Dubai show that in 1997, United Kingdom exports were worth more than £900 million.

Mr. Swayne: The trade with Dubai affords tremendous opportunities for British business based on our expertise, experience and the competitiveness of our tenders. Does the Minister agree that our relations with Dubai stand to be damaged by the continued detention of George Atkinson? What representations will the Minister make to the Government of Dubai consequent on the decision by the United Nations working group on arbitrary detention to describe Mr. Atkinson's detention as "arbitrary"?

Mr. Fatchett: I welcome the first part of the hon. Gentleman's comments, particularly his reference to the competitiveness of British exports in the middle east. It is good to hear him talking in those terms, unlike many of his colleagues, and I welcome his comments.
We continue to make representations on Mr. Atkinson's behalf. The hon. Gentleman has been vigilant in his support for his constituent. We shall continue to liaise with him, with Mr. Atkinson's family and with the authorities in Dubai, and we shall take up the points that have been made about Mr. Atkinson's detention.

Biological and Chemical Weapons

Mr. Harry Cohen: What representations he has made to his United States counterpart to try to achieve that country's agreement to ensure compliance with biological and chemical weapons treaties. [54296]

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Tony Lloyd): We are in regular dialogue with the United States on all aspects of the implementation of the biological and chemical weapons conventions. I am pleased to report that the United States has passed legislation to implement the chemical weapons convention.

Mr. Cohen: That is news to me.
Is the Minister aware of the danger that will be posed to the international regime against chemical weapons if the United States drags its feet in implementing legislation? Is he saying that call inspections will now be possible in factories where chemicals are handled? I understand that the lack of such inspections is blocking call inspections in other countries.
Can the Minister tell us something about the biological treaty negotiations in Geneva? Hopefully, the United States will not drag its feet in that regard.

Mr. Lloyd: I am pleased to say that the United States Congress recently ratified legislation allowing precisely the type of challenge inspection that my hon. Friend has described. There is now no possibility that other countries can hide behind the supposed reluctance of the United States, which is now complying with the chemical weapons convention. We welcome that, having played our part by making our views known to the United States Government and Congress.
I remind the House that, in his new year message and more recently at the United Nations, President Clinton spoke in favour of the biological weapons convention. That is a positive sign. The United States is already a signatory. What we are all working towards now—at least, those of us who are working with good will—is the certainty that the same challenge regime exists for biological as for chemical weapons. That would be a signal achievement for the world. We have already banned a whole class of chemical weapons of mass destruction, legally at least. If we can do the same in regard to biological weapons, and implement the ban, we shall have taken a significant step for all mankind.

Dr. Julian Lewis: Was it not a piece of barefaced cheek for the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) to point the finger of accusation at the United States in relation to treaties banning biological weapons? The United States, like this country, signed the treaty to ban biological weapons in 1972, and President Yeltsin admitted in 1992 that for 20 years—as we in the west had suspected—the Soviet Union had been flagrantly breaching the treaty. If accusations of that kind are to be made, should not the hon. Gentleman direct them at the Russians, who, even now, have not cleaned up their act in this respect?

Mr. Lloyd: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like me to go a little beyond party political rhetoric, and stick to the substance of his question. He is right: the United States was one of the signatories of the 1972 treaty, which was an important step forward. Britain's record is good in this regard, and I must pay tribute to what the previous Government did in respect of chemical weapons, although perhaps they did less in respect of biological weapons. As a House and as a country, we should hold firmly to the view that all nations should sign and ratify both treaties.

Kashmir

Mr. Peter L. Pike: What recent discussions Her Majesty's Government have had with representatives of the Indian and Pakistani Governments, regarding Kashmir. [54297]

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Derek Fatchett): We have had a number of discussions with representatives of India and Pakistan on regional security issues, including the question of Kashmir.

Mr. Pike: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is understandable that there is worldwide concern about the increasing tension between Pakistan and India over the Kashmir problem, especially following the nuclear tests carried out by both countries earlier this year? Does he hope that the talks that started last week, which will be resumed in the new year, will lead to an end to the problem? That is in the interests of people on both sides in Kashmir, and in the interests of India and Pakistan. Will my hon. Friend make it clear to both sides that, while there is a problem for those countries to solve, we will do all that we can to assist the achieving of that objective?

Mr. Fatchett: I agree with all that my hon. Friend has said. It is crucial that India and Pakistan are able to establish a sensible, constructive and peaceful bilateral relationship. We wish the talks well that started last week and had been preceded by discussions between the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan in New York. We hope that those discussions lead to measures that relate not just to Kashmir, but to other confidence-building issues and broader economic and security issues—but my hon. Friend is right. The south Asian sub-continent is a volatile area, and the question of Kashmir makes it that much more volatile. Hence the need for the discussions to be successful.

Mr. Michael Colvin: Does the Minister of State recall that today is the 51st anniversary of the occupation of large parts of Kashmir by Indian forces? Therefore, does he not think that it would be a good day to confirm the United Kingdom's determination to bring Kashmir back on to the agenda of the United Nations Security Council, bearing in mind that there were resolutions from the Security Council in 1948, 1949 and 1957 calling for a plebiscite of the Kashmiri people on their future? Does he not think that that should be pressed for by Her Majesty's Government?

Mr. Fatchett: The international community is naturally concerned about the developments in relation to Kashmir and the threats that those pose for regional stability and security. The best current approach is through the bilateral talks between India and Pakistan. We wish those well. The obvious parties to resolve these difficulties are the two Governments. If they can come to an understanding, that is the best way for the peace of the area and for the people of Kashmir.

Argentina

Mr. Michael J. Foster: What plans he has to meet the President of Argentina to discuss UK-Argentine relations. [54298]

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Robin Cook): The President of Argentina arrives on an official visit today. He will hold talks with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and me. He will address the City of London and the Confederation of British Industry, and lay a wreath in commemoration of those who fell in the Falklands war. This is the first visit to Britain by the President of Argentina since it became a modern democracy, and a welcome demonstration of the growing strength of relations between our two countries.

Mr. Foster: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is time to rebuild Britain's relationship with the new Government of Argentina? Will the Government use President Menem's visit to take forward our growing ties in trade and industry for the benefit of both our nations?

Mr. Cook: I assure my hon. Friend that we expect this visit to provide a further boost to the excellent commercial relationships that Britain and Argentina enjoy. President Menem will bring with him 100 leading Argentine business men and the contact with the CBI and the City will, I am sure, deepen those commercial ties.
It is also appropriate that we should recall that President Menem played no part in the Government of Argentina with whom we were at war two decades ago. At the time, he was in prison, where he was held for five years and tortured under that same regime. The fact that he is the President of Argentina shows how far it has come.

Mr. John Wilkinson: In welcoming President Menem, personifying as he does the process of reconciliation and compassion in his country, will the right hon. Gentleman take heed of President Menem's wise counsel with regard to relations between both Argentina and the United Kingdom and Argentina and its neighbouring states? Therefore, could the right hon. Gentleman do nothing that will prejudice democracy within a state neighbouring Argentina, which had a very tense relationship with that country?

Mr. Cook: If I were to pursue the line of thinking in the hon. Gentleman's question, President Menem might justifiably be rather confused as to which country I thought he came from. First, however, I entirely endorse the hon. Gentleman's welcome for the reconciliation, which has been welcomed by most of the veterans of the Falklands war; secondly, of course, we will do nothing to undermine democracy in either Argentina or Chile; nor will we do anything to undermine the rule of law in Britain.

Mr. David Winnick: Will my right hon. Friend tell President Menem of this country's undoubted good will towards Argentina now that it is a democracy, but make it clear that he should understand that it is important to allow the due process of law to take place regarding General Pinochet? That very process of law, I am glad to say, is being carried out in Argentina.
There should be an understanding that there can be no amnesty and no safe haven for mass murderers such as Pinochet.

Hon. Members: What about China?

Madam Speaker: Order. The question is about Argentina. I shall have something to say on these matters a little later. Does the Foreign Secretary want to make any response?

Mr. Cook: indicated dissent.

Madam Speaker: I thought not.

Mr. Dafydd Wigley: The Foreign Secretary will be aware of the close links between Wales and Patagonia—links that came under considerable strain during the Falklands war—and that there is a well of good will in Argentina towards the United Kingdom and a desire to forge much closer relationships. Does he agree that the best safeguard for the Falklands is for such links to blossom and grow constructively?

Mr. Cook: I am well aware of those links. It is worth recalling that we have a deep and wide relationship with Argentina. For instance, British service men are currently working alongside Argentine service men to maintain the peace on the green line in Cyprus. If our service men can achieve that partnership, our politicians should seek to do so too. I fully agree that a healthy understanding between our two countries must be good for the Falkland Islanders in the long run.

Germany

Mr. Ben Bradshaw: If he will make a statement on the impact of the German general election result on British-German relations. [54300]

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Ms Joyce Quin): The United Kingdom has excellent relations with Germany and we look forward to developing them further with the new German Government. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I will meet the new German Minister for Foreign Affairs, Joschka Fischer, for discussions both tomorrow and on Thursday.

Mr. Bradshaw: Does my hon. Friend believe that the election of a fellow centre left Government in Bonn will help in our Government's task of repairing our damaged relations with Germany—relations that suffered so badly under the previous Government—and that the election result shows that it is entirely possible to have decisive political change under a system of proportional representation?

Ms Quin: As the German SPD belongs to our political family, we are, of course, pleased that it has won such support from the German electorate. We look forward to working closely with the new Government, and it is satisfying to note that the centre left seems to be so popular with European electorates. Perhaps Conservative Members would like to reflect on that trend.

Mr. Crispin Blunt: The Minister will be aware that the new German Government have already

imposed a moratorium on an important joint arms programme, for the multi-role armoured vehicle. Defence relations are obviously an essential part of our relations. What is the new German Government's response to the Prime Minister's proposals for a change of policy on defence in Europe, which the House has not had the opportunity to hear?

Ms Quin: Chancellor Schröder complimented the Prime Minister on his contribution at Pörtschach, and felt that his proposals were a good basis for future discussions on that part of European policy. The Prime Minister's statement was welcomed generally as an important contribution to the debate of the heads of state.

Lockerbie

Mr. Tam Dalyell: If he will make a statement on the progress of negotiations to resolve Lockerbie-related problems. [54301]

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Robin Cook): Last August, I announced agreements with the Governments of the Netherlands and of the United States on the conditions under which we could hold a trial of the two accused in a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. The agreement has been endorsed in a unanimous resolution of the Security Council, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations is in discussion with Libya on the arrangements for the handover of the two accused.
We have been able since to respond positively to all the concerns raised by the Libyan legal team, with the exception of the demand that, if convicted, the two accused should not serve their sentence in a Scottish prison. If they are found guilty, we can see no valid reason why they should not serve sentence in the jurisdiction of Scotland, where the mass murder took place.

Mr. Dalyell: Is it not a matter of record that the Libyan Government have constantly said that it is up to the defence team to decide, from its point of view, the locus of serving a sentence, if there is one? Does he not therefore take encouragement from the fact that, as far as most of us know, the defence lawyers have not objected to the locus of Scotland in terms of a sentence, if any sentence is passed?

Mr. Cook: It is, indeed, the case that the defence lawyers have not expressed any view on where the accused should be held in prison. However, I should tell my hon. Friend that, before we made our offer last August, there was no statement from the Government of Libya expressing any concern about imprisonment in Scotland. That concern surfaced only after we had met their demand for a trial under Scottish law in a third country. We now expect Libya to oblige the Security Council resolution by surrendering the two accused for trial on exactly the same basis as that for which Libya itself has lobbied for a long time.

Sir Teddy Taylor: As the Government of Libya have indicated in writing that they agree to the proposals, subject to some amendments, and as the British Government have said that there will be no amendments, is it not rather insulting to the House


that the draft order setting out the proposals for the trial and the expenditure has been dealt with under a procedure entailing that the order cannot be discussed in the House? Does not the Foreign Secretary think that it would be appropriate for the House to debate the order and to be able to express a view on it? Does he not also agree that there is a case for quiet private discussions and flexibility, and that the issue could well be resolved very speedily?

Mr. Cook: The draft was passed by an Order in Council under the standard procedures for Orders

in Council, and gives effect to a Security Council resolution, which has standing in international law. As for flexibility, the Libyan defence team has come up with no concern on which we have not been able to reassure it, except for the one matter of it wishing to dictate where the two accused might serve their sentence if convicted.
There is nothing to stop any hon. Member debating the issue. I rather wish that we were dealing with a regime that would allow the Libyan people to discuss it in the same open way.

Points of Order

Sir Norman Fowler: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. May I seek your guidance on a point of order of which I have given you notice? As you know, we have asked the Home Secretary to come to the House to make a statement on the position of General Pinochet. There are important questions to be asked, ranging from the handling of the case to the condition of General Pinochet himself.
The Home Secretary may feel himself inhibited in making such a statement by the proceedings currently taking place in the divisional court, which I understand will soon be completed. I think that it is important that the House should be able to hear a full statement on the case, given that it is being extensively reported in the media, not only in the United Kingdom but around the world. Could you confirm that, once the proceedings in the divisional court are concluded, there will be nothing to prevent the Home Secretary from coming to the House to make a statement?

Madam Speaker: Thank you, Sir Norman. I know that Mrs. Clwyd has a similar point of order, which I shall take now.

Ann Clwyd: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Further to that point of order, although I know that we have had a few little differences in the past, I was very surprised last night to receive from the Table Office a letter informing me that my early-day motion—which was signed by 75 of my colleagues, and expressed the opinion that we were pleased at Senator Pinochet's detention in Britain—had been suspended from the Order Paper. I am a little confused because, during Foreign Office Question Time, we have had quite an open discussion of the matter.
Why is it possible to express an opinion on the matter, one way or the other, during Question Time, whereas it is not possible to express an opinion on the Order Paper? I know that many more of my colleagues wanted to sign that particular early-day motion. I should therefore be glad if you could throw some light on the matter.

Mr. John Wilkinson: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. I should like to add to the observations expressed by the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), in as much as I tabled an amendment to her early-day motion, to express the view that the Senator should be allowed to return to Chile to recuperate, and perhaps to receive there the extradition request from the Spanish authorities. I too received notice from the Table Office that my amendment had to be withdrawn.
You will recall that I sought to raise private notice questions on Monday and Thursday of last week on the Senator Pinochet affair. When the divisional court proceedings are over, will it be possible for hon. Members

to table private notice questions on matters relating to the senator if there are important developments that require the House's urgent attention?

Several hon. Members: rose

Madam Speaker: How many more points of order before I can respond?

Mr. David Winnick: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. It should not be thought that it is only Opposition Members who would like the opportunity, if the rules permitted it, to discuss the Pinochet affair. As you may or may not know, I have been keen for such a debate to be held on the Floor of the House. The reason that I want it debated at the earliest opportunity, although I recognise the limitations set by our rules, is that many of us want to explain that Pinochet is a murderer and should be—

Madam Speaker: Order. I am dealing with a point of order. If the hon. Gentleman is expressing an opinion, I have no time for that at this moment. This is a serious matter.

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: rose

Mr. Gerald Bermingham: rose

Madam Speaker: Order. I think that I have the feeling of the House about this matter. I have been in the House for some 25 years; I am very sensitive to its needs, and I try to respond.
I know that the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) is concerned that he is inhibited from commenting in the House on matters that he has been widely asked to comment on outside. I know too that the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) is frustrated, as other hon. Members no doubt are, that her early-day motion and those of others, along with amendments to them, relating to Senator Pinochet have been withdrawn from the Order Paper because the matter is now sub judice. I fully understand Members' concerns, but I must have regard to the rules of the House. I do not make the rules of the House; I simply carry them out until they are changed.
Our sub judice resolutions, which can be found in the Standing Orders of the House, require that there should be no comment on matters awaiting jurisdiction in the courts. A hearing is currently being held relating to the legality of the senator's arrest and, in due course, a court may have to decide whether the evidence against the senator is sufficient to warrant his trial in Spain. Hon. Members must therefore take care not to offend against the rule, which exists to avoid conflict between Parliament and the courts and to ensure that the judiciary and the courts remain, and are seen to be, free from political pressure.
I shall of course ensure that hon. Members are able to raise with Ministers in the House any matters relating to this issue as soon as it is in order to do so. I shall watch proceedings carefully and ensure that, when the


proceedings in relation to the arrest and the extradition request are completed, the early-day motions are restored to the Order Paper. I can say no more at this stage.

Mr. Corbyn: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker—

Madam Speaker: No. There are no further points of order on this. That is a very clear ruling. I shall take no further points of order on the matter.

Mr. Crispin Blunt: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. We were just told During Foreign Office questions by the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Ms Quin), the reaction of Chancellor Schroder to the Prime Minister's proposals on European defence, proposals that Philip Webster of The Times has heard but which the House has not. Have you had any notice of a statement by the Prime Minister, the Foreign Office or, indeed, the Ministry of Defence on this matter?

Madam Speaker: No, I have had no indication that any statement is going to be made by any Minister on that matter today.

Mr. Gerald Howarth: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker: Of course, if it is on a different matter.

Mr. Howarth: May I just ask you—

Madam Speaker: Order. I have given a very clear ruling. I shall take no further points of order on this matter.

Mr. Harry Barnes: On a fresh point of order, Madam Speaker. The weekend summit in Austria was described as informal, but it is nevertheless of considerable interest to the House. As it is a House of Commons matter, has there been any approach to you to suggest that there will be a statement by the Prime Minister on what took place? It has already been mentioned in a partisan manner by the shadow Foreign Secretary, who linked it with Chile. However, will the matter be separately debated by the House?

Madam Speaker: It is not a matter for me whether time is available for such a statement. If the Prime Minister or any Minister wishes to make a statement, I shall ensure that he or she can do so. In answer to the hon. Gentleman's question, I have had requests from other hon. Members for such a statement, but none has been forthcoming.

Adoption (League Tables)

Mr. Julian Brazier: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require local authorities to publish annual totals of numbers of children in care, numbers of children adopted and numbers of parents available to undertake adoptions; to require local authorities to provide the Secretary of State annually with a list of children in care, together with the length of time each child has been in care; and to require the Secretary of State to publish league tables of local authorities based on that information.
I am privileged to have support for the Bill from hon. Members on both sides of the House, including the members of the all-party children group; the chairman of the child abduction group; the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis), who generously gave up his slot for this Bill, and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field).
As we read today of young lives ruined by physical and sexual abuse, drug-taking and prostitution, many of us think, "Thank God that our children are not involved"; but surely all children matter. Perhaps the worst feature are the horrific statistics relating to children taken into care—those for whom the state has taken responsibility. We owe a special responsibility to them because they have no voice of their own.
Since my earlier ten-minute Bill on adoption, there has been another horrifying report to the House on the vicious abuse of children in another state-run children's home. Many workers in children's homes work intensely hard to do their best for very damaged children, but the overall statistics are extremely bleak. Children leaving care are 50 times as likely as other children to end up in adult prison. They are far more likely to be drug abusers. Perhaps most horrifyingly, girls in care have a one in four chance of being pregnant at some point during their time in so-called care. The evidence is that the rate of abuse of boys is almost the same.
We are failing the most vulnerable and defenceless members of our community, but there is one underrated institution that has a remarkable success rate—adoption. Studies from all over the world show how successful adoption is. Children from care who are adopted do much better not only than those who remain in care but than those returned from care to their natural parents. Incredibly, children adopted from care, including badly damaged children, out-perform even those who remain with certain categories of natural family.
Numerically speaking, however, adoption has collapsed. Only 6,000 children were adopted in 1995, compared with 22,000 a generation ago. The most scandalous figure is that, last year, fewer than 2,000 children were adopted from care, out of more than 50,000 currently in care. The number of children in care has started to rise again, while the number of those adopted from care continues to fall year after year. There are many families who would love to give those children a loving home.
In an earlier ten-minute Bill, I proposed legally forcing local authorities to give priority to adoption in certain circumstances, and to give assistance to couples adopting. I greatly regret that there is not to be an adoption Bill, although I welcome the fact that the Under-Secretary of State for Health has taken the trouble to come and listen to my speech.
In August, a circular from the Department of Health called on local authorities to be more open to adoption. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides would endorse the circular, but it is no substitute for legislation. I fear that many local authorities will ignore it, as they did a similar circular from the Minister's predecessor, John Bowis, who was then the hon. Member for Battersea, leaving the most vulnerable children in our society as the losers.
My previous Bill was given a First Reading without a vote. I am grateful for the all-party support for this more modest measure. The aim of the Bill is to turn the aspirations of successive Ministers and of hon. Members on both sides into clear reality. By ensuring the compilation of more statistics, the Bill would expose those local authorities that are holding children back from adoption for ideological reasons. It would require local authorities to furnish the Secretary of State with a list of every child in care, saying how long it has been in care. Incredibly, despite the clear legal requirement, many such children have not even been furnished with proper care plans.
The Bill would further require the Department to publish, by local authority, not just the total number of children in care, but how long they have been in care, the total number deemed suitable for adoption, the number who have been adopted and the number of parents cleared by the local authority as suitable for adoption. According to the Government's recent circular, all that information should be provided to elected councillors. By forcing local authorities to provide it in a standard format to the Government—and hence to Parliament—the Government, Parliament and the public will be able to see which local authorities are dragging their feet. Lest there be any doubt that some local authorities are dragging their feet, I remind hon. Members that last year 50 local authorities had 10 or fewer children adopted from care. Indeed, a few did not have any children adopted from care in the most recent accounting period.
The Bill would help to expose the unnecessary suffering of children trapped in the care system when there are loving families who would love to give them a home. In my earlier measure, I sought to give the Secretary of State the power to intervene with local authorities that did not appear to be acting in the best interests of the children concerned and to hand over their adoption responsibilities to voluntary organisations. This Bill would at least make the information public, showing which were the local authorities concerned.
We have a large and growing number of children slipping through the cracks from care into crime, drug taking and child prostitution. We must move the emphasis from long periods in children's homes—and in the case of some local authorities, politically correct experiments in placements, some of which are transitory—to a higher proportion of adoption, which should be effected by married couples, in my opinion. That would offer thousands of children who are lost in and by the care system the prospect of a decent home and a better life.
The hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) has courteously written to tell me that he intends to oppose the Bill, but does not intend to put the matter to a vote. I should like him to answer two questions. First, does he accept that some local authorities are actively opposing adoption? Secondly, if he does not accept that, how does he explain why some had no

children adopted out of care last year and many others had so few—and how does he explain the continuing fall in the national total? The system is unsatisfactory. We all want a Bill to facilitate adoption, but in the meantime, does the hon. Gentleman believe that it is all the system's fault? If he wants to oppose the Bill, I ask him to give the House the opportunity to vote on it.

Mr. Hilton Dawson: I should like to oppose the Bill. In doing so, I commend the commitment of the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) and applaud him for bringing the important subject of adoption to the House. He asked me two direct questions, which I shall try to answer. I would be surprised if any local authority were actively opposing adoption. Some individuals—perhaps influential individuals—may have got themselves into a position where such events have resulted.
Sometimes, as I want to explain, adoption has fallen by default. The situation in adoption services is very serious. Like the hon. Gentleman, I want them to improve and develop; I just do not think that this Bill is the proper way to achieve that. I do not want to press the matter to a vote at this stage, because the subject is very important and it is vital instead that we have a proper debate.
One of my worries about the Bill arises from the fact that adoption is not the only proper way of looking after children in care—or necessarily the best way. The majority of children who are looked after in care are returned home—many very successfully. Some children remain quite appropriately in long-term foster care, and some remain quite appropriately in long-term residential care. As has been said, it seems that, under the Bill, local authorities could be criticised for not having children adopted, even when a good assessment, a well worked care plan and the wishes and feelings of the children indicate some other solution.
I commend the desire for information, which we of course need. As has been acknowledged, much of the information that would be required under the Bill is routinely collected or is on its way to being collected. If we want to improve and develop adoption as a profoundly important way in which to help children in care—I think that both the hon. Member for Canterbury and I do—we need to collect more sophisticated information about needs and resources throughout the care system and evaluate outcomes for care-leavers, including those who were adopted, rather than take up the ideological position of thinking that it is always or invariably best to adopt. We need to empower young people to tell us what it is really like for them in care.
We need fundamental reform of the care system. I am so pleased that the Government have introduced the "quality protects" initiative. I also look forward to the response to the Utting report. The importance of this debate is that it helps to draw attention to the problems in adoption. I agree with the figures that have been quoted. Recent research by the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering shows that the use of adoption has fallen from 2,800 instances in 1992 to 2,300 in 1996, and that adoption is primarily an outcome for very young children. Indeed, 90 per cent. of those adopted in 1996 were aged five or under. The research reports terrible delays in finding placements and between making those placements and achieving the adoption.
The Government are addressing those is sues. They have taken sensible steps in "Adoption: achieving the right balance" to reinforce what I, as a former practitioner, would regard as good practice: recognising the benefits of adoption while taking account of the significance of race, culture, religion and language, so as to ensure that children are not denied adoptive placements on such grounds; accounting sensitively for age, health and smoking factors; and giving priority to long-term planning and a regular review of services.
I was worried by the fact that the hon. Member for Canterbury allowed comments about ideology and about political correctness to creep into his speech. Such thinking is not prevalent in social services departments.
Although local authorities should be accountable, league tables are wholly inappropriate for a complex, subtle, highly professional process, carefully assessing the individual child, balancing the needs of siblings, trying to keep families together, weighing the importance of contact with birth families, matching needs with the perceived qualities, abilities and experience of prospective adoptive families and, above all, trying to look into the future and work out how things will develop, perhaps a decade ahead. It may be a controversial view in the House, but I believe that there are a great many excellent social workers; they need to be encouraged and supported in good practice in complex and difficult human situations instead of being hit over the head with crude and misleading league tables.
The hon. Member for Canterbury referred to the lack of an adoption Bill; I entirely agree that one is needed. I am sorry that other aspects of his proposal today missed their opportunities. I should like to push the Government a little more. On Tuesday 20 October, in the House, the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering launched their adoption action plan. It is very good stuff. Some of it has been around for a very long time. We need a new Adoption Act. In 1996, a draft Bill on adoption received support from both sides of the House. A new Act could clarify the status of adoption in line with the Children Act 1989, in England and Wales. Other parts of Great Britain have already done so.
We need national standards for adoption services, to help improve practice across the board. We need performance indicators. We need ethnic monitoring of children in care and the adoption opportunities available to them. We need a national register of prospective adopters, so that people in one part of the country need not wait ages when children from another part might easily and properly be placed with them.
We need paid adoption leave for adoptive parents. That is so important in forming that vital bond early. We need adoption allowances, so that couples who are fostering children successfully are not financially penalised if they make the greater commitment to adopt them. Crucially, support services need to be provided for adoptive families after adoption.
Although the Bill is well meaning, it misses fundamental points. In the past 12 months, there have been signs that the Government have the potential to be a great reforming Government for children in care. Some good steps were taken in the recent Adoption Agencies and Children (Arrangements for Placement and Reviews)(Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 1997, but the Government can do more. We could all do more, so let us do it.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Julian Brazier, Mrs. Llin Golding, Mr. David Davis, Mr. Bill Olner, Sir Sydney Chapman, Mr. Malcolm Wicks, Mr. Andrew Rowe, Mr. Frank Field, Mr. Laurence Robertson, Mr. Elfyn Llwyd, Mr. John Burnett and Mr. Christopher Fraser.

ADOPTION (LEAGUE TABLES)

Mr. Julian Brazier accordingly presented a Bill to require local authorities to publish annual totals of numbers of children in care, numbers of children adopted and numbers of parents available to undertake adoptions; to require local authorities to provide the Secretary of State annually with a list of children in care, together with the length of time each child has been in care; and to require the Secretary of State to publish league tables of local authorities based on that information: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed [Bill 249].

Orders of the Day — European Parliamentary Elections Bill

Lords amendments considered.

Clause 1

NUMBER OF MEPs, ELECTORAL REGIONS AND ELECTORAL SYSTEM

Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 2, line 1, leave out ("a registered party, or").

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): I beg to move, That this House does disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Madam Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 2 to 4.

Mr. Straw: As the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) and I have said many times, it is the Government's fundamental belief that an electoral system should be appropriate to the nature and function of the body that it is electing. In the case of the European Parliament, the Government believe that the simple regional list system—some people call it the closed list system—is the most appropriate way for the voters of Great Britain to elect their Members of the European Parliament.
I shall not, unless tempted—this is a serious warning to my hon. Friends—go over much old ground on the pros and cons of proportional representation, multi-Member regions, or the size and composition of those regions. [Interruption.] I believe in regions. I am strongly committed to regions.
I am pleased to see the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney) in his place. Since he debated the issue with me—there is no linkage here—the scope of the debate has narrowed. Over the course of almost a year, this House and the other place have agreed that the next elections to the European Parliament should take place under a regional list system. What we are now considering is the fascinating and important question of what kind of regional system should be used.
You, Madam Speaker, are one of the experts on electoral systems. You will know, as others may not, that there are basically three types of list system—closed, semi-open and open. As originally drafted, the Bill provided for the first of these—a closed list system.

Sir Norman Fowler: Semi-open.

Mr. Straw: The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) mutters from the Front Bench, but I have a feeling that he did not want to hand over the baton as shadow Home Secretary until after we had debated the merits of the semi-open list—namely, the Belgian list.

Sir Norman Fowler: We have got that.

Mr. Straw: Very good. I shall deal with the Belgian list in a moment, even if not tempted.
When I first presented the Bill to the House, it contained the proposal for a closed list system. The amendments that have been made in the other place provide for the last of those three systems—a fully open system. I shall explain, especially to hon. Members who support the open system, how it would work. Sometimes, as is said in the Guinness advertisements, things are not always as they appear.
For a party which, I am told, is united on first past the post, if it is united on nothing else, I must explain that the result of its proposal will be eccentric in the extreme, and will not lead to the horses that get first past the post actually winning the seats. Indeed, some of the old nags who saw the vet the previous day and who are way behind the first in the field will win the seats in the European Parliament. I wonder whether that was the intended result. I shall explain how that will arise, then I shall be happy to take questions.
Under the open list system, an elector casts his vote for a particular candidate on a party's list, or for an independent candidate. What the voter cannot do is cast his or her vote for the party's list as a whole.
With the regional list system, we are not dealing with a standard first-past-the-post multiple vacancy system of the kind that Labour Members knew and loved during the 18 years of opposition, which was called the shadow Cabinet electoral system. That also produced some eccentric results, of which I suppose I am an example, but the one thing that it did not produce, except in respect of those four women's places, was an outcome where someone who received more votes did not get elected and someone who received fewer votes did get elected. That will be the result of the proposed system.
The voter will have one vote and may cast it for an independent candidate or for one of, say, the 10 or 11 Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat candidates on the list. What the voter cannot do is to cast his vote for the party as a whole. The hybrid semi-open system is the Belgian system, which we debated at some length and which is not before the House today. However, I shall elaborate on that system if I am asked to do so.
The votes received by each candidate on a party list are first added together to give the party's total number of votes. That figure is used to determine how many seats a party has won. I do not need to remind the House that the method used to determine how many seats a party has won by was devised by our old friend, that famous Belgian Victor d'Hondt.

Mr. John M. Taylor: Whatever happened to him?

Mr. Straw: I think that he died—he went the way of all flesh. By the way, I have a feeling that "d'hondt" means "dog" in Flemish. Some might say that we have been dogged by the d'Hondt divisors.

Mr. Gerald Bermingham: It is obvious that Mr. d'Hondt's name drove him to an untimely demise—and it will no doubt do the same to us. According to the Home Secretary's comments, under the open list system, a person votes for only one candidate, and that gives rise to all sorts of peculiarities. Would it not be possible to arrange that, if a person votes for a particular candidate, that is also his or her preference


within the party? That would give the candidate an added vote in the final count, and would allow a person to vote for the list. That is surely not beyond the wit of man.

Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend is entirely correct in saying that that is not beyond the wit of man or woman. In fact, it is, roughly speaking, the Belgian system. The only problem is that that is not the system before the House for which the other place voted. The other place voted for a wholly open system—

Mr. Richard Allan: The Finnish system.

Mr. Straw: I rest my case. Finland is a wonderful place, but a third of Finns do not understand the Finnish language.
The other place voted for the open list system, which produces slightly odd results. Under that system, one aggregates all the votes cast for candidates of a particular party. Therefore, one adds up all the votes cast for Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates and so on. That produces the total number of votes cast for the parties and one then uses a d'Hondt divisor to calculate how many of the 10 or 11 vacancies in the region will go to each party.
The seats are allocated in the order of the votes received. That means that, if a party wins three seats in a region, those seats will be allocated to the three candidates who won the most votes among candidates of their party. However, this is where the system becomes slightly eccentric. For example, there may be one very strong candidate on a party list—I shall pick at random the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield. There may also be several unknown candidates on the party list. I choose, by way of further example—there will be complete approbation on this point—the Whips, who are faceless, who never speak and whose constituencies I have forgotten. That applies on both sides of the House.
So there is one strong, very well-known party candidate on the list and several other candidates who are not known at all—as they say, they are not even household names in their own households. Let us suppose that the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield receives 100,000 votes in that region.

Mr. John M. Taylor: He would get more than that.

Mr. Straw: His hon. Friend, the speechless Whip, says that the right hon. Gentleman would get more votes than that. For the sake of argument, we shall say that the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield receives 1 million votes—I think that that is reasonable in the circumstances. Let us assume—I do not want my example to get too complicated, Madam Speaker—that there are just five vacancies in that region, and the other four candidates each receive 200,000 votes. It will be quickly realised that the Conservative party has received 2 million votes, and, in this region in my entirely hypothetical example, has done better than the other parties. Therefore, it wins three out of the five vacancies, because the other parties received fewer than 2 million votes.
Then we allocate the three seats to the three Conservatives. It has happened that, as well as one Conservative getting 1 million votes and the others getting 200,000 each—my arithmetic was wrong, because there would have to be six candidates if there were to be 2 million votes altogether. By the way, this is a simple system. It is the simple closed system. It happens that there are some medium-strong candidates on our side, the Labour side. The obvious such candidate is my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), who I suggest gets 800,000 votes. The process would go on, with another of my hon. Friends getting 500,000 votes and the rest getting fewer than 200,000.
Under this system, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield fairly gets elected and gets one of the seats. However, the next two seats are not awarded to the candidates who in the round have more votes than the faceless Whips. The seats go to a couple of candidates who each secured 200,000 votes. There are others who have 400,000 or 500,000 votes who do not get elected. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow is elected, and someone else who gets 600,000 votes is elected. There are the other three who get fewer votes—say, 300,000 each. The aggregate of those comes to fewer than 2 million votes.

Miss Anne McIntosh: Will the Home Secretary give way?

Mr. Desmond Swayne: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Dr. John Marek: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Straw: Of course I will. I will give way shortly.
The electors will say, "This is rather odd." By the way, I agree that it is rather odd. I modestly suggest that the electors will say—I understand that the Conservative party is backing this arrangement—"This is particularly odd for a party which otherwise has been consistently in favour of first past the post."
I have excited a little interest, and at this stage I will give way to the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh).

Miss McIntosh: I hope that on this occasion I can assist the Home Secretary and avoid the scenario of dog eating dog that is pervading the Chamber. Missing from the right hon. Gentleman's scenario—he has spoken eloquently, and we have all enjoyed hearing it—is the electors' choice. Does the right hon. Gentleman not share my concern that the greatest handicap of changing the system on 10 June next year is that, for the first time ever, the elector will be prevented from voting for a mainstream candidate from one of the major parties in the election system as we know it? This will lead to massive confusion, and possibly a record number of spoilt ballot papers.

Mr. Straw: I shall answer that point seriously, because I think that it deserves a serious answer. My judgment is that we end up with less voter choice, paradoxically, under the open system than under the closed system.

Mr. Eric Forth: What?

Mr. Straw: If what the Conservative party were putting forward—[Interruption.] I shall give way, but I should like to develop this point.
If it were being proposed that there were as many votes as there were vacancies, the hon. Member for Vale of York would be right, and the open system would be the appropriate one. We can argue then about the problem of proportionality if we have the first-past-the-post system in a multi-Member constituency. We can argue whether there should be ranking in order or in some other way, but the hon. Lady would be right. If each voter was allowed to vote for every person on the list, there would for sure be greater voter choice. We would also end up with the situation in which the candidates getting the most votes would win. I happen to think that that is rather an important principle, which we have to stick by.
Under the closed list system, I think that there will be a good degree of choice. It is the choice of a party. When I stand in Blackburn, I stand as the Labour candidate. If people want to vote Labour, they must vote for me. Let none of us believe that, if we stood simply as the J. Straw party, we would get the same number of votes. That has been tried once or twice. I remember S. O. Davis, who was a legend in his lifetime—[Interruption] I shall give way in a moment. S. O. Davies tried it, as have many others. The truth is that we get to this place because of our party backing. If that were taken away, most of us would not be here. That would almost certainly include me. The closed list system gives clarity and a degree of fairness.
We are debating not the merits of various systems but the proposition that came to the House from the other place, which I am trying to point out has serious defects from the point of view of the principles which the Conservative party holds dear.
4.15 pm
With one vote, voters must plump for one of, say, in larger regions, 10 candidates. Either they will go for the person who is top of the list alphabetically—that discriminates heavily against those of us who are at the bottom of the list, which is always my explanation of how I came near the bottom in the shadow Cabinet elections; another explanation was the well-informed electorate, and a third was the fact that I could not properly explain the regional list system—or, and this is much more important and a good deal of research evidence shows it in multi-member wards in local elections, they vote for the white male, and they certainly do not vote for anyone whose name sounds foreign and may be Asian.
The truth is that most of the candidates in most of these regions—it was also true for the European elections under the single-Member constituencies—are known to only a small minority of their electorate. We know that to be the case, and there will be no change between the new and the old systems, because the number of MEPs, however good they are, who could conceivably develop a connection with their electorate so that they could have a personal vote, is tiny.
It is not true that voters will be informed about the relative merits of the candidates. What they are informed about is the relative merits of the parties.

Dr. Marek: My right hon. Friend got to the truth of the problem when he said that it was a choice for the party. In the case of Labour, it has been a choice for the Labour party centrally. Does he know that in Wales a candidate was put on the list who ordinary Labour party

members did not know was in contention and who was not being considered, and it was a complete surprise to all of us in north Wales when the list was produced? It is difficult to find any Labour party member in north Wales who will help in the European Parliament election next June. That is the problem with the closed list.

Mr. Straw: I am aware of the case. I have just been briefed. I have refreshed my memory. Actually, I do now remember the case. We are debating a system which should apply by law for voters. We are not debating, although I am happy to do so if you, Madam Speaker allow me, the merits or otherwise of the Labour party's internal system.
I simply say that, because of our unrivalled act of generosity in putting forward this system of proportional representation, which will be put into effect next June—never before in Britain's history has a party voluntarily given up quite a large number of seats to its erstwhile opponents, but we are doing so—we have more MEPs than, even with the kind of result that we had at the last election, could be elected under the new system. That has meant some personnel management as we downsized the cadre. That, in turn, has created difficulties.

Mr. Desmond Swayne: The principal factor in the scenario that the Home Secretary has painted is not the openness of the list but the operation of the d'Hondt formula. That formula is coincidental to the amendment, but is at the heart of the system that he proposes. To take the right hon. Gentleman back to his opening remarks that the electoral system must be appropriate to the body that is being elected, is he suggesting that, because the European Parliament is not really a Parliament, we can afford a barking electoral system to elect it? If so, those on this Bench might find it attractive.

Mr. Straw: If we are to have multi-Member constituencies, we must work out a way of dividing the vacancies among the parties. One way of proceeding is to give electors as many votes as there are vacancies. Electors vote either by marking a cross or by choosing a number between one and, say, five, and the computer does the rest. However, that is not what we are discussing here today. I doubt whether that kind of proportional representation would be acceptable to the Conservative party.

Dr. Norman A. Godman: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Straw: I shall in a second.
If there are fewer votes than vacancies, one must use some form of mathematical divisor, whether it is an open list, a semi-closed or an entirely closed system. That is not directly relevant to the merits of the case that we are discussing today. My comradely advice to the Conservative party about its future self-interest is that it is well served by the d'Hondt system. Indeed, that is the only reason that I proposed it.

Mr. Llew Smith: Would the Home Secretary be kind enough to remind the House of the content of the excellent document that he once wrote for


the national executive of the Labour party, in which he criticised not only the closed system of PR but every other system?
Will the Home Secretary now respond to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek)? There seem to be two problems. Under the closed system, those who decide who the Members of the European Parliament will be are not the electorate but a small panel within each individual party. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham said, that problem is made even worse within the Labour party, because those who decide on the candidates are not the members, through one person, one vote, but a panel of about a dozen people. My predecessors, Aneurin Bevan and Michael Foot, would not have been acceptable, because their views would have been too radical and too socialist, and because they were too dissenting.

Mr. Straw: As far as I recall, the excellent tract that I wrote applied to the Westminster Parliament. We are dealing with horses for courses.

Mr. Llew Smith: rose—

Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend has asked a series of questions, and I wish to deal with them. He asked how each party decides on the make-up of its list. That is not this House's responsibility.

Mr. Smith: The Home Secretary raised the issue.

Mr. Straw: As I said, it is not a matter for the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) asked what had happened in the Labour party system, and I have sought to respond.

Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham asked about internal party democracy only in response to the point which the Home Secretary raised on that very matter.

Mr. Straw: I think that the record will show otherwise.

Mr. Gordon Prentice: rose—

Mr. Straw: I shall allow my hon. Friend to intervene, and then I shall get on with my speech.

Mr. Prentice: I do not want to labour the point, but, as the Home Secretary acknowledges, under the closed list system, real power transfers to the party. If we are to have a closed list system, we need a completely transparent system of inner-party democracy so that Labour party members realise why a candidate has been selected to represent the party at the European elections.
It is invidious to name names, but I shall do so. My Member of the European Parliament, Mark Hendrick, whom the Home Secretary knows well, is sixth on the list in the north-west. We will win that sixth seat only if the result in next year's European parliamentary elections replicates the good result that we had in the north-west in the general election last year, when Labour took 54 per cent. of the vote.

Mr. Straw: I know that my hon. Friend will work hard for that result, as will the rest of us.
If we have a regional list system, we must have a system for establishing the ranking for each party. I appreciate some of the concerns of my hon. Friends about the way that the arrangements have worked out within the Labour party, but they have worked out in that way—I do not make a joke of this at all—principally because of the circumstance in which we have had to manage difficult change. We are—as I have said, it is an act of most extraordinary generosity—in practice handing over to other parties seats which we would otherwise win, to support this principle of proportional representation.

Mr. David Curry: Does the Home Secretary accept that the electoral choice is purely at the margin in the system that he proposes? Of the 87 MEPs to be selected to represent the United Kingdom, about 70 or 75 will know whether they will be elected or not before the election even gets under way. Therefore, it is at the margin—at No. 3 or No. 4 on a list of seven, or at No. 6 or No. 7 on a list of 11—where the only choice is to be made. The rest might just as well pack off and have an early holiday, or investigate the good restaurants in Strasbourg, whether they will be elected or not, and leave the handful who will be at the margin—on the cusp—of that choice to be selected by the electorate.

Mr. Straw: Things will not work like that, which is my point. Far from the open list system leading to serious voter choice, it will lead to completely arbitrary circumstances. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber when I said this, but I do not believe for a second that the electorate will stand for circumstances in which candidate X, who gets 500,000 votes, is not elected, and candidate Y, who gets 300,000 votes, is elected. No one will understand that. The idea that we will give the best voter choice in circumstances in which the candidates are not known, and everyone accepts that, seems unreal to me.
There are other results. Not only regional-list-based elections for the European Parliament are determined at the margin; all elections are determined at the margin, always. Although the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) knew that his party was facing disaster, I guess that he assumed that, whatever happened, he would get elected. The same thing happened on our side in 1983. All elections are determined at the margin, but the open list system would also lead to candidates in a party competing not against the other party, but against one another.

Mr. Curry: My criticism was of the closed list system, which the Home Secretary is advocating. His point about the open list is that the other place has not changed it sufficiently, so we are locked into a system. He persistently talks about systems as if this Parliament were not competent to choose its own system.
May I take the Home Secretary's mind back to when this entire debate started, and we began the catalogue of what seems to be a protracted Belgian joke? He was urged to introduce a system under which there was genuinely open choice, but he declined to do so—after much hesitation, which was to his credit. We have now got ourselves stuck where he says that we have a choice between a cataclysm and a catastrophe. It seems that, whichever way the vote in the House goes, we will end up with an inexplicable system.
In the light of the Prime Minister's commitment to what I understand is supposed to be a Europe more relevant to its citizens, it is curious, if that is the Government's priority, that they have chosen the particular system that they have.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. Before the Home Secretary replies, may I say to hon. Members on both sides of the House that interventions are starting to become extremely long? It would assist the debate if they were brief and to the point.

Mr. Straw: May I deal with the right hon. Gentleman's last point? He is generally supportive of matters European. The system we propose is used by the majority of European countries and the majority of European voters. That may not make it right, but it makes it more usual.

Mr. Swayne: The Government's system is as eccentric as those in the amendments.

Mr. Straw: The suggestion is that the proposed system is somehow eccentric, or an aberration. It is not: it is commonly used in the rest of Europe.

Dr. Godman: rose—

Mr. Harry Barnes: rose—

Mr. Straw: I shall give way to my two hon. Friends, and then I shall get on with my speech.

Dr. Godman: May I correct what the Home Secretary said a few moments ago? He referred to this unparalleled act of generosity. He and his ministerial colleagues could argue that they were just as generous for the elections to the Scottish Parliament. Come next May, as a Scottish elector I shall have two votes: one for a candidate and one for a party. Reservations about the closed system similar to those of my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) have been voiced in the west and south of Scotland.

Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend is right. We have, to a slightly lesser extent—at least, I hope and pray so—been generous in the arrangements for Scotland, which will have an additional member system, as is proposed for Wales. We were committed to the regional list system: that was in our manifesto. For reasons which I need not go into now, we fought and won the election on that proposal. After the election, we brought forward the time for that change, and made it earlier. That was not fully anticipated in our manifesto.

Mr. Barnes: My right hon. Friend has so far produced two arguments against the amendments. He may have others, but he has been prevented from putting them, as there have been many interventions. One of the arguments is about members of the same party fighting against one another in a contest. That is the problem with the single transferable vote in a multi-Member constituency. The other argument is that, if three people are elected for a party, the person who finishes second or third may have

fewer votes than a person who is not elected. The person who finishes bottom under the amended system may have been placed top on the central party list.

Mr. Straw: With an open list, it would be possible for someone to be elected who did not have the unanimous support of the politburo of the Conservative party, the Labour party or the Liberal Democrat party.

Dr. Godman: Or the Scottish National party.

Mr. Straw: Or the SNP.
The point about an open list is that it is not a ranked list: it is simply a list of candidates who have equality on the ballot paper—they are in alphabetical order—and it is supposed to be for the voters to put them in order. However, there is a fundamental problem. Some elected candidates may have fewer votes than candidates who are not elected, and it will unquestionably discriminate against women and people with foreign-sounding names—particularly Asian or Afro-Caribbean.
It has been accepted that I have given way a great deal. I should like to close my remarks.

Miss McIntosh: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on a point to correct his information?

Mr. Straw: No. The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East, says that there is no such thing as a point of information, but I hope that the hon. Lady will accept that I am giving loads of information.
The right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) referred to my consideration of the Belgian list proposal. I said that I would think about it. We were criticised for thinking about it for too long, but it was important to think about it for a long time before coming to a view one way or another. Our judgment was finely balanced, and we came down against it.

Miss McIntosh: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Straw: For the last time, and it really must be the last time.

Miss McIntosh: The Home Secretary will correct me if I am wrong, but my distinct understanding is that nine member states have open lists. I am at a loss to understand why we do not want to be with the majority and go for an open list.

Mr. Straw: I do not think that that is correct. If the Under-Secretary catches your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we will give full information, but I am sorry to say that I am tolerably certain that the hon. Lady is wrong. I refer her to the Library's briefing paper, which has a big chart at the back.
Under a closed list system, there is no prospect of an anomalous result. Nothing is hidden from the voter. When voters cast their vote for the party of their choice, they can see the order in which that party's candidates will win seats, and they vote with that knowledge. The open list system provided for by the amendments—we are not discussing perfect systems; we are discussing the


amendment—is much more of a lottery for the voter. His vote will have two functions: to win seats for the party as a whole, and to win a seat for the particular candidate for whom he has voted. An elector who has voted for a candidate who is not elected may feel that he has wasted half his vote.
Under the closed list system, if the elector intensely dislikes candidates high on the list, he can do what can be done, in extremis, in any ordinary parliamentary election. If he really does not like the person who is standing as his party's candidate, he need not vote for that person. At the margin, we all have something of a personal vote, although I think that in only a few cases has that personal vote swung the result.
As has been said many times—this point should be noted by Opposition Members, and by certain of my right hon. and hon. Friends—the closed list system is essentially a first-past-the-post system, and first past the post is essentially a closed list system with a list of one. The closed list system has the great benefit of simplicity, which is a consideration that we should not ignore.
Let me quote from an academic source beloved of the Liberal Democrats, and one or two of my expert friends in the official Opposition. Professor Patrick Dunleavy and Dr. Simon Hix of the London school of economics, and Dr. Helen Margetts of Birkbeck college, said:
Open list ballot papers are more complicated. The ballot paper will be much longer because all the candidates will have to be listed with ticked boxes. People may feel obliged to look over all the names, a lengthy business in the South East region where with 11 seats there could be 40 or more candidates … some people such as the elderly, those who have difficulty reading, first time voters, and people who are just attached to the existing way of doing things, may dislike the ballot paper or find it confusing".
I think that they will definitely find it confusing.
The document continues:
A major study of voting systems carried out just after the 1997 general election (the Democratic Audit report, Making Votes Count) provided good survey evidence that British voters do not like complicated ballot papers with multiple names and tick boxes and strongly prefer simple short ballot papers.
All parties have been making, or indeed have made, arrangements to contest the next European parliamentary elections on the basis of a closed list system. Some of my hon. Friends have famously celebrated those new arrangements. Candidates for every party have already been selected, and are starting to campaign on that basis. I doubt that each party now wants to overturn all the arrangements, and start again with a different system.
No electoral system is perfect; all we can do is match the most appropriate electoral system to the body that it is being used to elect. We believe that, with the closed list system that was originally in the Bill, we have found the best match. I am not saying that it is the best system; I am merely saying that it is the best match. It is no coincidence that voters in Germany, France, Spain, Greece and Portugal use it to elect their MEPs.

Mr. William Cash: They follow a tyranny of the party list.

Mr. Straw: They constitute the majority of voters in Europe, and the majority will be even larger when we

adopt the system. The hon. Gentleman seems to think that voters in Luxembourg should carry the same weight as voters in Germany. That is an interesting proposition.
Of course, the fact that the closed list system is used in those countries is not a reason in itself for us to adopt it, but it shows that we are not embarking on some constitutional innovation.

Mr. Cash: Does the Home Secretary remember a recent article in which Mr. George Jones of The Daily Telegraphdisclosed some of the leaks from the Jenkins commission, which will report on Thursday? They revealed that, during a series of consultation exercises around the country, Lord Jenkins had been taken aback by the hostility towards the idea that introducing some form of proportional representation based on a list system—any list system—would increase party control. The people have shown that they do not like the party list system in any circumstances, be it open or closed.

Mr. Straw: It is dangerous for the hon. Gentleman to insinuate that the opinion of those who turn up to an open meeting of Lord Jenkins is somehow representative of the public as a whole. The hon. Gentleman could be hoist on a very large petard if he goes down that track. The British public have not had any experience of this system. It is not yet law; it is still a matter for Parliament to decide. Their experience will no doubt be informative, and will help to inform the wider debate on proportional representation.

Mr. Andrew Robathan: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Straw: No. I must finish.
The Conservative party is coming to the House in support of an open list system, but I do not believe that it understands the consequences of that system for its party. Moreover, I hope that we are not going to have too many high-blown phrases about how the open list system is morally superior to a closed list system. I remind the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield, the shadow Home Secretary, that the closed list system was the one chosen by the government of which he was a member for the elections to the Northern Ireland forum.
The right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), then Prime Minister, said of the closed list system, which the Northern Ireland (Entry to Negotiations, etc) Act 1996 provided for:
I believe that this is a fair and balanced system that will produce a representative outcome."—[Official Report, 21 March 1996; Vol. 274, c. 498.]
That was good enough for him when he was arguing for a closed list system, and it is good enough for us. Of the systems available, the closed list system will produce a fair and balanced system, and a representative outcome. I therefore commend to the House our motion to disagree with the Lords amendment.

Sir Norman Fowler: I do not think that that was one of the Home Secretary's more convincing performances. At one point, when about 20 Labour Members were here, it was a matter not so much of his trying to convince us as of his trying to convince them. He was obviously totally unsuccessful. Most of them have now fled, and I am not


surprised. Even the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth), looked rather doubtful by the end of the Home Secretary's speech.[Interruption.] He probably much prefers sitting through his master's speech half asleep—as he obviously is—to being woken up.
I will say this as a compliment to the Home Secretary: it is always interesting to hear a politician make a case in which he does not believe. It is clear that he did not have his heart in what he said. I am trying to be kind to him. It would be much worse if he believed all the stuff he was saying. If he does believe it, there is no excuse for the dismal case that he made.
As he waded through his script, the Home Secretary did establish one thing: he would not make a good returning officer. He set out his belief in the regions, but the House did not notice the same underlying belief in proportional representation. Nor am I remotely mollified by my endorsement as a popular Conservative candidate, which the right hon. Gentleman threw in halfway through.
Once more, the House of Lords has done us a service in allowing us to think again on a fundamental issue regarding next year's European elections. The Government have decreed that those elections will be carried out on the basis of a list system based on the regions. That is not the system that my party wants. I am a strong supporter of the first-past-the-post system and of the constituency base—and as far as I understand his position, so, frankly, is the Home Secretary—but that is not the choice that the House has before of it today.
The choice that we must make today is whether to support a closed list system where the party ranks the candidates in order of preference and the electors' only choice is which party to vote for, or an open list system, where the electorate have the opportunity to choose which candidates they want to elect.

Mr. Robathan: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Home Secretary, in his defence towards the end of his speech, said that he wanted to go back to the closed list for the convenience of the parties and, I suggest, the power of the parties? He did not like the fact that the party might lose power and be a bit inconvenienced through this amendment.

Sir Norman Fowler: That is entirely the basis on which the argument is advanced—this is for the convenience of the party. What hon. Members on both sides of the House have to decide is what is convenient for, and the desire of, the public. The electorate matter most.
Given the choice before us—between the closed system and the open list system-1 have no hesitation in saying that the House of Lords was entirely right to vote for the open list system. The alternative was put frankly—although it was not put as frankly by the Home Secretary—by the Minister in the other place, Lord Williams of Mostyn, who said:
What we are doing here is offering to the voters a list of party supporters in a way which has been determined by internal party choice."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 October 1998; Vol. 593, c. 1329.]
That is on the record. Given that description, I am not surprised that the Lords voted as they did. Lord Williams of Mostyn was entirely accurate in his description,

however: the list system as proposed by the Government leaves the electorate voting for the party, while the candidates are determined by internal party choice.

Mr. Cash: Does my right hon. Friend recall that the Leader of the Opposition, in a brilliant speech at the Centre for Policy Studies on 24 February, said:
of all the dangerous and destructive constitutional reforms currently on the table, perhaps the most dangerous and the most destructive is proportional representation"?
Does my right hon. Friend accept that, whether we are talking about Westminster or the European elections, this is an issue of principle, and that there is a substantial difference between the position that we should adopt and that which was adopted by the House of Lords?

Sir Norman Fowler: It is certainly an issue of principle. What the Leader of the Opposition said is absolutely correct, but let me give an example of what the system that the Government appear to want so much can mean.
On 23 September, The Birmingham Post reported that the existing Labour Member of the European Parliament, Christine Oddy, had been displaced as the Labour candidate by a former "EastEnders" actor, Mr. Cashman. Asked what Mr. Cashman knew about the west midlands—and I quote from the report—
Labour bosses defended his record in the region saying he acted in 'The Rocky Horror Show' at the Birmingham Rep earlier this year.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) knows that this is exactly what the Labour party said at the time.
The case got worse and worse. Miss Oddy told a Cuban solidarity campaign meeting at the Labour party conference:
Tony Blair came to Strasbourg in July and he kindly agreed to a five-minute audience with officers from the European Parliamentary Labour Party.
You can imagine my astonishment when I was kissed on the cheek. I wonder if it was the kiss of the mafia when you see what has happened to me now.

Dr. Lynne Jones: The right hon. Gentleman is correct to draw attention to some disquiet in the Labour party about the way in which the list has been put together, but, unfortunately, we do not have any opportunity to change that today: it is not what we are debating.

Sir Norman Fowler: That was a remarkably diplomatic intervention. Following the precedent of Mr. Cashman, the Home Secretary's wet night in King's Lynn would put him on the party's European list for East Anglia.
Why should the public have candidates foisted on them? The Labour party's selection system has few pretensions to democracy. The Conservative party has one member, one vote, meetings to select, and the Liberal


Democrats have a postal ballot. However the candidates are selected, they remain party candidates; why should not the electorate be able to make their own choice?

Mr. Straw: Who selected the right hon. Gentleman?

Sir Norman Fowler: I was selected by my constituency association.

Mr. Straw: By the party.

Sir Norman Fowler: Certainly by the party, but at each election I appear on the ballot paper as a named candidate and people know precisely who I am. People in Sutton Coldfield are not asked to vote for Labour, Conservative or—

Mr. Straw: rose—

Sir Norman Fowler: The Home Secretary spoke—not very illuminatingly—for about 45 minutes. He can wait a few seconds.
Our ballot papers at the general election did not say simply "Conservative", "Labour" or "Liberal Democrat"; the names were there. However we dress up the proposed system, the choice will be simply a party choice. Choosing the party will often not be enough. As an example, imagine that the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Radice) and Lord Shore were on the same ticket; despite being in the same party, they stand for completely different positions on Europe. Those positions are well understood, and I do not want to argue about which is right.
I mention Lord Shore because he is one of the Labour peers who voted against the Government on the issue, so he is partly responsible for our discussing this matter again today. Incidentally, another of those who voted against the Government was the Bishop of Blackburn, as the Home Secretary will doubtless be aware.

Mr. Straw: Whatever the bishop's private view, he is not a Labour peer.

Sir Norman Fowler: No, but Lord Shore is.
The choice may be made not on doctrinal grounds but on personal preferences regarding two candidates on the same ticket. For example, if the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry were on the same ticket—they might find it bad enough being in the same Cabinet—the charm and elector appeal of the latter might win through; or it could be the other way round.
At one stage, some of these arguments appeared to be influencing the emerging view—that is the politest way of putting it—of the Home Secretary, who said on Second Reading:
I am prepared to listen to the arguments for adopting a Belgian-type system and to give them careful consideration…we are a party and a Government who listen to argument."—[Official Report, 25 November 1997; Vol. 301, c. 814.]
They may listen, but when they have done so they do what they intended to do in the first place.
Those who have followed the Government's contortions on this issue have come up with alternative explanations for why we are where we are today, none of which, frankly, does the Government much credit. In its parliamentary bulletin, Charter 88 said:
The decision came as a surprise to those who followed the debate. All contact with Government gave the impression that adopting the open list was a formality. This included Labour MEPs who were collectively briefed two days before the announcement that the new system would indeed include open lists. The swiftness of the reversal and the lack of a convincing explanation of the decision has led many to believe that it was taken by Tony Blair rather than Jack Straw.
That is the nearest that the Home Secretary has got to a compliment on his handling of the issue.
The Home Secretary placed in the Library a description of the Belgian system, then pondered how he could gauge public opinion. Of course, he did what one would expect any fully paid-up member of new Labour to do: he set up some focus groups. He probably set up focus groups to determine whether he should make the concession in the first place.
It is usual, and not only among Conservative Members, to be offensive about focus groups, and I will not disappoint the House, but in one respect NOP showed a remarkable touch of good taste: it positioned three of its mini-groups in a constituency renowned for its good electoral sense over the past 25 years: Sutton Coldfield. It would be comforting to report that the member of the focus group who said, "There's nothing nicer than knowing your MP", came from my constituency but, sadly, he came from the other place where the discussions took place: the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Sir A. Hamilton).
There was little doubt about the focus groups' immediate response to the closed list. The conclusion was:
Parties appear to be depriving voters of their right to select individuals…party selection begs the question for some as to whether party loyalty will precede constituency loyalty.
I agree with those comments, but I contest the so-called considered response on the closed list, in which NOP says:
Precisely because voters can feel the European Parliament to be remote and dislocated from their own lives and experience, they can be relieved to devolve responsibility to parties to select candidates for them.
I do not believe that that is a sensible summary of public opinion. People do not say, "All this looks very complex; we will leave it to the parties to decide." That is nonsense. It is not my experience; nor is it remotely in our democratic traditions. It is a patrician view that would put even Lord Jenkins in the shade.

Mr. Swayne: Is it not grotesque that, having been thrown out by the voters and lost his own seat in the German election, Chancellor Kohl appeared within minutes as a representative in the Parliament, as a consequence of the closed list? Does not the system give rise to the possibility that voters will be represented by candidates who are unpopular?

Sir Norman Fowler: To be fair, it is a different system, but the principle is the same, and on that my hon. Friend is entirely correct.

Mr. Straw: I want to put to the right hon. Gentleman a point that none of his colleagues picked up during my


speech: precisely what the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) fears will happen under the closed list system and claims to have happened under the German additional member system will happen under the open list system. Some of the least popular candidates with the fewest votes will get elected under the open list, in preference to candidates with more votes. Where is the democracy in that?

Sir Norman Fowler: I shall come to that point. That argument does not invalidate the whole argument about the open and closed lists. There is a broad principle that the Home Secretary, untypically, did not appear to address in the whole of his lengthy speech: the public have a right to be able to choose named candidates within a party. Even with the defect that he pointed out—I do not consider it fundamental—the alternative is far less damaging than anything that he has proposed. The open list system is essentially more democratic, because it gives the public greater choice. I am not persuaded that the rather laborious list of practical difficulties with the open system given by the Home Secretary invalidated that argument.
One point that I find somewhat puzzling—for once, it has nothing to do with the Home Secretary—was raised in our debate in Committee, on 12 March 1998, when the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan), speaking on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, said:
The arguments in support of open lists are overwhelming".—[Official Report, 12 March 1998; Vol. 308, c. 771.]
When it came to the vote, however, the Liberal Democrats voted with the Government.
The same thing happened in the other place, when Lord McNally—who was once a Labour Member but now speaks for the Liberal Democrats—conceded that the Liberal Democrats had argued for an open list but had intended to vote for the closed list.
Once again, therefore, we hold our breath to learn the attitude of the Liberal Democrats, who have proved yet again that they are the party of the "don't knows" and the chronically undecided.

5 pm

Mr. Allan: If I catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the right hon. Gentleman will not have to hold his breath for too long. For the moment, I should point out to the right hon. Gentleman that we strongly believe that this group of Lords amendments has been tabled with the intention of stopping the Bill's passage completely. Our voting behaviour has been predicated on that assumption.

Sir Norman Fowler: That is a pretty weak excuse. Either the hon. Gentleman is in favour of the open list system or he is not in favour of it. I should have thought that he and other Liberal Democrats Members might have the courage to vote in support of their beliefs. Nevertheless, I shall listen—or at least my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) will listen—to the hon. Gentleman's arguments when he is called to speak, as he undoubtedly will be.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) said—it is a very important point—we are debating the issue of list systems only 48 hours before Lord Jenkins's commission reports on proportional representation for

Westminster elections. That report will set off an enormous debate in the United Kingdom. After our debates on clause 3, it will be very interesting to discover whether an open list system is proposed for use with any top-up system that the Jenkins commission may propose. If one is proposed, it will well and truly torpedo the case made by the Government in today's debate.

Mr. Bermingham: The right hon. Gentleman may recall the first intervention that I made in this debate, during the speech of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, when I asked a question about d'Hondt. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that—as the choice is simply between an open and a closed system; we have no other choice—opting for the open system would give rise to a nightmare of possibilities and complications with independent candidates?

Sir Norman Fowler: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the decision is between open list and closed list systems. However, for all the reasons that I have given, I believe that the open system is the more democratic one.
On the general issue of proportional representation, my position and the Home Secretary's are probably much closer. He supports the first-past-the-post system; and, like me, he also supports the constituency base. It is therefore a mystery why the Government have started this process of electoral change. I tell the right hon. Gentleman quite seriously, however, that, in the coming months, the Opposition will relish the fight that he is beginning.

Mr. Cash: rose—

Sir Brian Mawhinney: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comments on the fight in which we will be engaged in the next few months. He said that the Government's case would be torpedoed if Lord Jenkins's report on Thursday proves to be in favour of some form of open list system—although my right hon. Friend and I agree that the Government's case has already been torpedoed.
I should not like Opposition Front Benchers to give credence to anything that Lord Jenkins says about PR on Thursday. The report will be a stitched-up deal between the Prime Minister—who believes in openness and transparency, except when it comes to what he does and wants—the Liberal Democrats and Lord Jenkins. My right hon. Friend has a hugely important role to play in the fight, in which we shall have to become engaged, for the first-past-the-post system.

Sir Norman Fowler: I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I agree with every word he said. My point was that the Government will be self-destructing—which is perhaps a better description of what will happen than "torpedoed"—even if their own terms are met.

Mr. Cash: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the Conservative party is in principle against the idea of proportional representation? I entirely agree with him that it would be an enormous own goal for the Government if Lord Jenkins reported in favour of a form of open list. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as the Conservative party is against proportional representation, it would be


far better for us to come clean on that and simply go for it by saying, "We are against the idea of open or closed lists"—and to leave it at that?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are now straying outside the scope of Lords amendment No. 1, which—as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) stated a moment ago—deals with a closed or open list system for the European parliamentary elections. I hope that he will remember his own observation.

Sir Norman Fowler: You make it quite difficult for me not to remember it, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Nevertheless—if I may say it in a few words—I agree with my hon. Friend's comments.
I do not want a regional list system, but if we are to have one, I believe that an open list system will be intrinsically more democratic and a better choice than the one proposed by the Government. Such a system would give the electorate the opportunity to decide who will serve them and not leave that decision in the hands of political parties. It would also prevent any political party from exercising even more centralised power. Above all, I believe that it is what the public would prefer. I therefore believe that we should reject the Home Secretary's advice and agree with the Lords amendments.

Mr. Bermingham: I do not propose to detain the House for long. 1 spoke in the debate on Second Reading and said that I did not like the proposed system. I said that I thought that that system was bad because it divorced the elected from the electors, and I stand by that view. I make it very clear that, if Lord Jenkins suggests anything other than our current constituency system, he will have my undying opposition. I say that openly.
As I told the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) a few moments ago, today's debate is about a choice between a closed list and an open one. I do not like closed lists, but nor am I very enamoured of open ones. However—if one is to be utterly realistic about the mess in which we will find ourselves next summer—unfortunately, we will have to go with the closed list system, for the following reasons.
The first reason is based on the participation of independent candidates. If we use an open list system in, for example, the north-west region, which will have nine or 11 candidates—

Mr. Robert N. Wareing: There will be 10 candidates.

Mr. Bermingham: Yes. If we use an open list in the north-west, and candidate No. 6, for example, wins a vote, the other nine candidates—of whichever party, whether Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat—will receive no vote.
I stand to be corrected if I have misunderstood the Home Secretary's explanation of the system, but I seem to have got it right. I must admit that the first thought that came into my head when the Home Secretary said that "d'hondt" is Flemish for "dog" was the advertisement for toilet paper in which the puppy runs away with the

expanding toilet roll. The Home Secretary's explanation seemed to be going the same way. Ultimately, the mess will certainly be the same.
If the explanations given to the House in this debate are right, the candidates from the major parties—I equate all three parties as the same in English constituencies—will find themselves at a disadvantage. It will only take someone in the north-west—Fitzsimons McGibben, for example—to decide to run as an independent. Under the open list system, that person will receive a vote that none of the major parties will receive. Which seat is that candidate going after? How many votes does he get? What is their value? That is the problem if we go with the open list system. Currently, with the closed list system, that problem does not arise, because his vote is of the same value as a Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat vote. He will take his place under the d'Hondt system in the totality of votes when it comes to the allocation of places.

Mr. Edward Leigh: Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the Home Secretary—this sums up the argument—that the closed proportional representation system provides for a simple ballot paper and that the open list system provides for name recognition but too complicated a ballot paper, but that the beauty and virtue of the first-past-the-post system is that it provides for name recognition on a simple ballot paper?

Mr. Bermingham: The hon. Gentleman and I are totally ad idem. The closed system is simple. Whether we like it or not, in the north-west an open list system would mean 33 major candidates listed on the ballot paper and goodness knows how many independents. The elector would have to select, which would be very complicated. We know from studies that have been undertaken that, when faced with over complex voting papers, people get fed up and do not want to vote.
We also know that, when voters cannot identify with a candidate, they are reluctant to vote. The turnout in June will be absolutely fascinating. I suspect that it will be disastrous.

Mr. A. J. Beith: It was disastrous last time.

Mr. Bermingham: I agree, but I suspect that this time it will be even more disastrous. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman would agree, in that event, that any form of proportional representation is more disastrous than non-proportional representation. No doubt he will reflect that intelligence in the way he votes in future.
I should like the Home Secretary to consider one point. Next June will certainly be experimental in terms of the voting system. Could we also consider experimenting with the voting day? The rest of Europe will vote on a Sunday; why do we not do likewise? It might be a useful opportunity to try two experiments at once. I have an open


mind as to whether Thursday or Sunday is best, but if we are to have an election with a low turnout, as I fear we are, we could at least try changing the day.

Mr. John D. Taylor: Why does the hon. Gentleman say that the rest of Europe votes on a Sunday when some countries do not?

Mr. Bermingham: I entirely forgot about my homeland, and I apologise immediately. Not all countries vote on Sunday, but the majority of Europe does—with two notable and remarkable exceptions.
In all seriousness, I suggest to the Home Secretary that next June might be an opportunity to experiment with the voting day. What has worried me in the past 15 years has been the decline in local government election turnouts, which is becoming disastrous in some areas. In my area, it was pathetic this year. The general election turnout also began to slip away—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman probably anticipates what I am about to say. He has embroidered his argument a little too much and is dealing with matters that are outside the strict terms of the amendment.

Mr. Bermingham: Your tolerance in allowing me to go so far was much appreciated, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that I have made my point, and I shall return to the fundamental issue.
My respectful view is that it is too late to turn back the clock. It is sad that I should have to say that, but that is the reality of life today.

Mr. Allan: The electorate can take heart from the fact that no single political party is entirely happy with the European election system. The fact that we all have a problem with it may mean that it is fairer than one that was welcomed with open arms by one of the three major parties and disapproved of by the others.
My party's position remains consistent. Our preferred option is neither a Belgian nor a Finnish model, but one closer to home—the Northern Irish model of the single transferable vote. That system is not on the agenda, and we now have to choose between the Finnish system, which has appeared at this very late stage in an amendment supported by the Conservative Members in another place, and the closed list system, which was agreed at an earlier stage of the Bill's proceedings.
The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) challenged my party's record. I feel that we had a good record in seeking an open list system. We proposed the Belgian list system at earlier and appropriate stages of the Bill. Indeed, there was a vote on it in another place in June this year, which we lost by only 15. Remarkably, the Conservatives in another place did not support us at that time. They have failed to vote consistently throughout the passage of the Bill when the Home Secretary, to his credit, was considering opening the list system. We are now up against the end of the Session, and they have at this late stage sent the Bill, amended, back to this place.
My colleagues in another place were unable to support the amendment because, as many Conservatives confessed, the clear intention behind the amendment was to wreck the Bill and have no proportional system at all.

Mr. Cash: The hon. Gentleman has studied the transcript, so he must know perfectly well that what he has just said is simply not the case. Three Liberal Democrats supported the open list system. I may not agree with it, but the hon. Gentleman cannot get away with his assertion that all Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords took a different view.

Mr. Allan: I should point out that five Liberal Democrats supported the amendment and 32 voted the other way. Our Members are lightly whipped—that is part of the tradition of our party, especially in another place where whipping is often less effective than in this place. We did not support anything that would wreck the Bill.
The important thing at this stage is to complete the process and pass the Bill. The choice is not between an open and a closed list, but between the first-past-the-post system and a fair vote system. We have worked consistently for a fair vote system. We had an agreement with the party that is now in government, which was declared and open before the election. There was no secrecy about the fact that we wanted to embark on a joint constitutional programme for reform, and that the reform of the European voting system was an essential part of that. That agreement spelled out a regional list system. We have stuck by our part of the bargain against our first choice because, in all constitutional reforms, it is important to achieve a glass that is half full, if that is all that is on the table, rather than one that is completely empty. Negotiations require some compromise.
At this stage, the priority is not to have the first-past-the-post system, which the Home Secretary, more eloquently than I have ever heard him before, today described as a closed list system of one. He made some telling points, especially about a conceit sometimes held by politicians that they are elected solely on a personal basis, whereas when one knocks on doors during the election, people say that they are voting for that Tony Blair, that Paddy Ashdown or that William Hague. The priority for many electors is to vote on a party basis. That is especially so at the European level, when many voters vote not for an individual, but for a party.
We want more openness in the selection for the list system. If we are to move towards elections on this basis, there is a need to debate the nature of our primary system, which is effectively what we are developing. Our party chose to conduct that debate on a one member, one vote basis. The Conservatives, to their credit, did likewise. We shall not go into the debates that are taking place within the Labour party, but there is clearly some concern that there is no common basis on which people are selected for important positions. We hope that we shall return to that issue when we consider electoral systems in future.
We should like to think that, after the coming European election, we can reconsider the closed versus the open list, but the pressure of time means that we have to decide whether we go forward with a deal that offers a fair vote system for next year, so that we can avoid what happened in 1994, when the Labour party ended up with something like three quarters of the seats on less than half the vote. That is not only bad for democracy in this country, but destabilises the entire European parliamentary process. People are unhappy about returning inappropriate numbers of Members who will form into larger groups, all of which are elected under different systems.
We want to reconsider the Northern Irish system, which we believe to be excellent, and open and closed lists, but we do not intend to support a wrecking amendment on behalf of a party that wants to retain first past the post. If that party continues in its present vain, it will do much to depress the vote at the next European elections, as its members continually talk down the system that we have chosen, saying how poor it is and how difficult it will be to operate. A system under which three or four party names and independent candidates are listed will be perfectly simple to operate. Electors will be able to use it if only we can get them to the polling stations. We should concentrate on getting people to vote rather than on the detail of the ballot papers and other such matters with which people are not overly concerned.
We do not agree with the amendment. We shall stick with the Bill and aim for its implementation at the earliest opportunity. As we have done throughout the proceedings on the Bill, we shall consistently argue our case without seeking to obstruct the Bill's implementation.

Mr. Cash: I agree, for all the reasons given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), that we should oppose the closed list system of proportional representation in the Bill. I was delighted that, at the end of his speech, he revealed that he agreed with my case, which I shall now develop, that we should oppose proportional representation in principle.
We object to the closed list system because, by having massive electorates of 6 million, it destroys the link between the Member of the European Parliament and the voter, and it is the progenitor of European regions, which are all part and parcel of the creation of a federal Europe, divided into provinces. The Jenkins commission, which will report on Thursday, has been left in no doubt during its sittings about the hostility of the British people to proportional representation because of the extent to which it increases party control.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman to focus on the content of the debate. He has declared his opinion on a particular matter, but that cannot be debated within the context of the amendment.

Mr. Cash: Far be it from me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as a long-standing colleague of yours on the Select Committee on European Legislation and many other bodies, to doubt your judgment on these matters. However, the amendment proposes an open list system, whereas the Bill proposes a closed list system. It is therefore imperative that we have a proper discussion about their relative merits and, as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) pointed out, the principle of proportional representation.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's interpretation. If he wishes to remain in order, he will confine himself to a discussion of open and closed list systems. He cannot use the debate to open up a discussion on the principle of proportional representation.

Mr. Cash: I am simply making a point about the Lords amendment. I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for

Sutton Coldfield, that as the amendment is unnecessary, Conservative Members must ask ourselves whether we would be prepared to take our argument to its logical conclusion.
We shall not win the vote on the amendment today, but the Bill will return to the other place and there will be to-ing and fro-ing between the two Houses. The key question will be whether we are prepared to invoke the Parliament Act 1911 on a question of principle for an unnecessary amendment. I very much doubt that that will happen. I am therefore distinctly cynical about the reasons why we have decided that we shall support the Lords in this venture. The amendment is a Trojan horse, and in supporting an open list system, the Lords and the Conservative party are hiding inside that horse only two days before it will be opened by Lord Jenkins.
As the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), said in an excellent speech on 24 February 1998:
Of all the dangerous and destructive constitutional reforms currently on the table, perhaps the most dangerous and the most destructive is proportional representation.
He went on:
It is a profoundly undemocratic measure masquerading under the banner of democracy and the Conservative party I lead will have no truck with it.
He continued:
We most resolutely reject proportional representation itself.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman has not been trapped by his notes into ignoring my ruling. I do not want to hear argument on the principle of proportional representation.

Mr. Cash: I do not need to argue on the principle, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because the open list system is proportional and based on a list, and the fact that voters might change the order of names on the list does not alter that one jot.
On 26 February, only two days after the speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks, we were given a three-line Whip on an amendment similar, if not identical, to the one that we are now considering, which was in favour of a variant of proportional representation. The open list system of proportional representation, which guarantees proportionality in relation to the parties because they receive the total vote cast for the candidates, gives only a minor say to the electorate, who might want to vote for someone who is not on the party list, so there is no great merit in us supporting the open list system. I abstained on that occasion, as I shall tonight. I wrote to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and discussed the matter with him.
As I said at the time, all we needed to do in February was vote against Labour's closed list system and press for the current method—first past the post—which is simple and well understood, and was agreed to by a Labour Government in 1977. Article 190 of the Amsterdam treaty, in the arrangements for the treaty on European Union, allows for a system which is
in accordance with principles common to all Member States"—
a democratic system, such as first past the post.
On 26 February, the Government got their vote. There has been much opposition in the other place to student grants and transport measures, and defeats for the Government on fundamental issues. We might therefore reasonably have expected that on a form of proportional representation that, to quote my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks again, is
perhaps the most dangerous and the most destructive",
we should have encouraged the Lords to amend the Bill to first past the post and have a battle on that important issue. That was emphatically not a manifesto question.
The Lords, by 445 to 176 votes, refused to amend the Maastricht treaty, and refused to allow a national referendum. They returned the Amsterdam treaty this year with a mouse of an amendment that was probably ultra vires. They now propose a system of proportional representation to which I take great exception because an open system is of no value to us whatsoever. What other explanation can there be? Why are we faced with the amendment?
I am reminded of Disraeli's great novel, "Coningsby", in which, after the Tamworth manifesto, he so clearly set out his position on the state of the Conservative party. He said:
There was indeed considerable shouting about what they called Conservative principles; but the awkward question naturally arose, what will you conserve?
Before the Jenkins report is published, I ask the House and my party, do we regard PR, which includes the open and closed list systems, as dangerous and destructive or do we not? Do we regard PR as profoundly undemocratic or do we not? Will we have truck with it or will we not?
I read the speech of our spokesman in the House of Lords, as I heard my right hon. Friend today. Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish said:
The amendment does not damage the Bill. My view is that it improves the Bill because it improves the PR method being used.
He went on:
But we are not arguing for or against PR; we are arguing inside the PR system."—[0fficial Report, House of Lords, 20 October 1998; Vol. 593, c. 1332.]
That is a Trojan horse indeed. We are arguing inside the PR system. You will be glad to hear, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that this is not just a question of principle; it is also a matter of practicality.
.It is unnecessary for us to adopt the open list system. We could have opposed it, demanded first past the post and insisted on it in the House of Lords. If we were going to lose the vote eventually, going against our principles would make no difference. Why do we have this hostage to fortune? There is no party advantage for us in an open list system.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have been very tolerant of the hon. Gentleman, but he is developing a point that should have been developed—indeed, probably was developed—on Second Reading. We are debating a Lords amendment that deals with two forms of proportional representation. I remind him for the final time to confine his remarks to that argument.

Mr. Cash: What I was just saying is directly relevant to the open list system. There is no electoral party advantage for us in an open list system. That what I said

when you intervened, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There is no evidence that we would gain any more seats by adopting it. That is relevant to the consequences of adopting an open list system. Given the poor turnout in our selection process, which, as I understand it, was only 1 per cent. in the west midlands, and the number of candidates with a proven track record in favour of monetary union and federalism, I cannot say that the open or closed list system has done us any favours.
The Liberals would be the main beneficiaries of the open list system, as they would be of a closed list system, for the reasons just given by the hon. Member for Hallam. He knows that this is part of a process that gives the Liberals an advantage because they want a fair votes system. Another objection on the grounds of practicality is that the Labour party is deeply divided and unhappy about proportional representation, closed or open. Why take the pressure off Labour? As one Member of the European Parliament has said:
It is much easier to represent a percentage than a constituency. You don't get any letters from a per cent.
Apart from the issue of principle, there are deep flaws in the open list system. The ballot paper is horribly complicated and has a wide range of boxes and permutations. In the South-east, there would be at least 40 candidates' names and tick boxes, not to mention an accumulation of minor parties. The voters would be faced with confusing alternatives: to vote for a party or to vote for particular candidates. That would make it difficult for first time voters and for the elderly. A recent study by the Democratic Audit Report showed, as did George Jones's article in The Daily Telegraph,that British voters do not like complicated ballot papers. They do not care whether the system is open or closed; they do not like it. Already, only 36 per cent. vote in European elections in this country. The complications inherent in an open or closed system will simply drive voters away.
The example of proportional representation in other countries is not good, as New Zealand or the dreadful experience of the Weimar republic in the 1930s show. Such systems lead to the manipulation of the party system by the tyranny of the party list. Politicians elected in that way represent no one. The list system sucks the democratic system dry, and drains away real argument and debate. That is the case against the open list system as much as against the closed list system. The Conservatives should have nothing to do with it, whatever the House of Lords may propose. After all, we are the elected Chamber. For real Conservatives, accepting such arrangements for the House of Commons or for the European Parliament would undermine the democratic process.
I conclude with the famous words of John Dewey in his book "Freedom and Culture":
The serious threat to our democracy is not the existence of foreign totalitarian states. It is the existence within our own personal attitudes and within our own institutions of conditions which have given a victory to external authority, discipline, uniformity and dependence upon the leader in foreign countries. The battlefield is accordingly here"—
I would say, in this House—
within ourselves and our institutions.
I agree. I shall abstain on the amendment for those reasons and I urge as many of my colleagues as possible to do so as well.

Mr. David Curry: I should like to go back to one of the Home Secretary's first remarks.
It is easy for the debate to become a cabaret—a sort of "Fawlty Towers"—in Westminster, but it merits serious attention. We may occasionally think that foreigners sometimes listen to the debate and draw conclusions from it. The Home Secretary said that we needed an electoral system that was appropriate to the institution. The Government seem to think that the appropriate electoral system for the European Parliament is one that maximises anonymity. That is not a good judgment.
People may or may not like the European Parliament. I have served in it, and my feeling is that despite all its efforts to fail, it is condemned to succeed. It is acquiring an increasing number of functions that affect people's ordinary lives. In a mature democracy, people need to be able to understand and develop a relationship with the institutions that govern them. That is true of institutions here and overseas. The forging of that identity should be one of the criteria leading to a judgment of what is a sensible electoral system. The Government's proposals will not achieve such a system.
Any list system is defective. The Home Secretary was right when he almost challenged the legitimacy of all of us, on the ground that somebody at some stage nominates us to go before the electorate. If we apply such an absolutist rule, none of us is popularly elected in the abstract sense. However, it is more important to try to establish an identity for the European Parliament that will work. It has had problems with its identity because it does not develop or support a Government, so the choice of the people is not easily reflected in policy differentials.
Where people stand on a list is a secondary issue. Who chooses the list is crucial, because those people set the framework within which the democratic rules will play. If I have understood the Home Secretary's words, the objection to the open list is based on the requirement to total all the votes cast for all the candidates of one party and use that as the basis for a division. It is possible that a candidate for party A who may have ridden on the coat tails of a popular candidate would be elected with fewer votes than a candidate for party B who had been less successful in riding on coat tails. We have to take that risk, because it will mitigate the power of the apparatchiks to make the choice. That is what people are most allergic to.

Mr. David Drew: I accept the right hon. Gentleman's arguments, but they would have been more convincing if they had been brought forward on Second Reading. I do not remember any Conservatives arguing for the open list system on Second Reading.

Mr. Curry: I refer the hon. Gentleman to my remarks on Second Reading. He will remember that, at that stage, the Home Secretary was still in an open frame of mind about what electoral system he would finally choose. We tried to urge him to opt for some variant of the open system.
It is dangerous to say that people need crutches when they vote—that we must not make the process too complicated because they will not understand it. We must trust people to be able to make their own choices and, if they have a determination to vote, to be able to understand the ballot paper. After all, some of the questions that have

accumulated on the ballot paper in the United States could not be much more complicated and, as has been said, nine member states of the European Union operate some form of open system. Despite the sympathy for foreigners with which I am sometimes reproached in my party, I believe that, on the whole, the British are just as capable of fathoming a ballot paper, making a choice and demonstrating as great a determination to vote as anybody else when they think that something important is at stake.
Something important is at stake. The importance of an open system is that it mitigates the apparatchik role, which all parties have, in a sense, experienced. The Liberal Democrats conducted a postal vote—democratically. All members of the Conservative party, as long as they had been members for some time, were able to take part in a vote. Although taking part in all-day sessions to choose European candidates is a fairly grisly incentive to join the party, no doubt some people joined for that purpose none the less. The Labour party conducted a very closed committee system, which no doubt produces a finely tuned, perfectly balanced result by gender, race and everything else—except, I suspect, affinity for the Prime Minister. I doubt that a great deal of diversity of choice has been permitted in that list. All that means that the electorate's choice is being narrowly framed.

Mr. Allan: On complexity of ballot papers, which I have heard some people raise in opposition to any of the systems that we are discussing, it is worth bearing in mind that the Northern Irish electorate has, for many years, happily used several different systems and, under the single transferable vote system, very complex ballot papers.

Mr. Curry: I agree with the hon. Gentleman; it is dangerous to say that people cannot understand. That is but one stage away from wondering why we should bother giving them a choice at all in case it is misused.
People should be given a choice; they should be given a chance to overturn the apparatchiks' work. Let us take the Conservative party. As members, we voted through a series of regional assemblies, which has produced a list of candidates placed in order. Some of those candidates give me not the slightest inconvenience, and I shall vote cheerfully for them. Indeed, in Yorkshire and Humber, where I shall be voting, I am delighted with the candidates on our list.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) will, however, understand if I say that my enthusiasm for one or two of them is slightly muted. As someone who lives in the regions, I would want to be able to make my own choice. I would say, "Why can't I decide which Conservatives I want on the list?" That applies equally to a Labour man or a Liberal Democrat. There are different, but all perfectly legitimate, strands of the parties; I do not question the legitimacy of any of them. Why should not I be able to choose which candidate I want to fly my flag in the elections?
It comes down to a system in which, despite the Home Secretary's reflections on the way in which we in this House are selected, there is an election at the absolute margin. One is faced with a list and votes for a party. Candidates at the head of the list know that they will be Members of the European Parliament. Unless there is some electoral earthquake, we know pretty well who will


be in and who will be out. A handful of places in the middle of the list are worth disputing. The situation is worse if there is a national list, such as in France, where only two or three candidates need stay in the country to fight the election because it is not worth the others' time to do so. We are inviting the electorate to endorse a candidate, not to make a choice. Even the open list is a form of endorsement, because the number of candidates and their names are chosen elsewhere—although at least it allows backroom wisdom to be overthrown, which is essential.
The risk of having identikit candidates chosen by apparatchiks will do nothing to help the European Parliament. As I have said before, the European Parliament, whether we like it or not—I quite do, as a matter of fact—fulfils a democratic role that is unlikely to be fulfilled by national parliaments. The need is for national parliaments and the European Parliament to work together more effectively so that real accountability may be achieved. You are glaring at me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, with a somewhat baleful expression. I fear that I may have strayed rather wide of the mark.
The key is ensuring that the electoral system for the European Parliament tries to reinforce the legitimacy of a parliament that is enshrined in a treaty, which plays an increasing role in people's lives, which is subject to increasing lobbying, which is increasingly part of a balance of institutions, and which is likely to increase in its authority—in co-operation, I hope, with national parliaments. If we choose a system that makes the European Parliament an anonymous institution and people cast an anonymous vote, we shall not be helping the processes of democracy. If we seek at least to give people an element of choice, enabling them to pick a name, we shall be adding to accountability in the European Union, where the burning question is the effectiveness of such accountability. If we do that, we shall have achieved just a little revolt, which will serve the principles of democracy.

Mr. Robert Syms: It is a great pity that, towards the end of debates on this Bill, we are debating closed and open lists. When one constructs an electoral system, that is the first point that one needs to decide. Everything determined afterwards is interlinked. The size of regions and what sort of link one wants between constituents and areas are pretty critical.
Our biggest problem today is that we have heard from the Home Secretary, whose arguments I found persuasive, that the Bill is so bad that it is unamendable—the regions are so large. It is true that, if we had an open list, 20, 30, or 40 members could be on it. It is also true that it is unlikely that, unless the candidate happens to be an actor from "EastEnders", he will be known in any household. That is a great indictment of the Government. We are trying to discuss how best electors can influence their representatives yet, at the end of a long Session, we have a Bill that is almost unamendable, and we cannot give electors a real choice in whom they want to represent them.
The Government's principal argument is that the proposed electoral system will work only if the decision on who will be No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4 or No. 5 on the list is taken by political parties. They say that to try to work an open list system would cause a great deal of

difficulty. The system's construction is such that, in effect, it will work only if a centralised party structure determines the choices and then puts them before the electorate. That is the biggest difficulty with this legislation.
How one wants electors to influence choice should be the first point of debate, not the last. This debate relates to every other clause of the Bill. I shall vote with my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench—although I have some sympathy with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash)—simply because this is such a bad Bill that I feel like voting at every opportunity against the Government. The Bill is not unamendable. As the Home Secretary pointed out, parties have already chosen their candidates. We are coming to the end of the Session, and implementing change at this stage would cause chaos and difficulty.
Any list system has many disadvantages. Indeed, because the way in which the list is constructed, we could just as easily have a national list and be voting for 87 people. I got the impression that, as we worked through the Bill, the Government decided that they would proceed on a regional basis. If we want to influence voters' choice, we must have geographical areas or subdivisions of the country in which people are able to make informed choices.
The difficulty is that the Bill has been so badly constructed—even from day one—that only a party-controlled list system, such as France's, will work with it. I shall join my colleagues in the Lobby because I believe that 1 ought to register my protest that the Bill will not make a good Act. As an opponent of proportional representation, I think that its only saving grace is that, when people find that they have a choice of voting only Labour, Liberal Democrat, Conservative or independent, it will do the cause of those who support PR no good. I take some comfort from that.

Miss McIntosh: The treaty of Maastricht allows for a uniform electoral system to be set up throughout the European Union. I record my regret that the House has not taken advantage of the opportunity to introduce first past the post as just such a system, under the treaty, because there is great merit in that system and it would have won much support throughout the European Union.

Mr. Beith: Is the hon. Lady seriously suggesting that the member countries of the European Union that have used proportional systems for decades—in some cases almost 100 years—would be prepared to adopt first past the post for European elections?

Miss McIntosh: I am persuaded by the Government's arguments that they are going not by a majority of member states who use an open list, but by the majority of populations in those member states; and I am reliably informed that 49 per cent. of people eligible to vote in the world use first past the post. If one has the best electoral system in the world, it is ripe for export. I am sure that, given time, we would have obtained the support of the majority of those—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Lady has finished with that point. She heard my previous rulings.

Miss McIntosh: Thank you for your help, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
There are no compelling arguments to reject an open list system—quite the contrary. Given that we have lost the argument on first past the post for elections to the European Parliament, the arguments in favour of an open list are very compelling indeed.
At the time we previously visited the Bill, the Government made a firm commitment to conduct an apolitical campaign throughout the country on the merits of the system that they are proposing. I have not seen much evidence of information about that system; that worries me. I wonder whether the Government are praying in aid the idea that they may have an open mind on changing the system to an open list. The Home Secretary felt that there would be no support among the political parties for moving at this stage to an open list. I should like to think that Conservative Members continue to keep an open mind on these matters, and that we might keep the candidates that have been adopted on our list, and simply move from a closed to an open list system.
The Home Secretary did not manage to persuade me of the reasons why he and other Labour Members do not want an open list. Usually, there are more abstentions in a European Parliament election than in any other election. In the most recent European elections, we reached the giddy heights of a 38 per cent. turnout. I am not sure of the figures for spoilt ballot papers.
I should not like to disparage the electors by suggesting that they cannot cope with the number of disparate ballot papers, but I wonder what the Home Secretary will do to dispel confusion about the many different electoral systems that will be used in the United Kingdom in the coming months.
In May 1999, in England and Wales, local elections will be held under the first-past-the-post system. In Scotland and Wales, there will be the first elections to the Parliament for Scotland and a Welsh Assembly, under a different system, using proportional representation. In June, in mainland Great Britain, in the European Parliament elections, we shall vote under the system that we are debating this afternoon. However, in Northern Ireland there will be a different system for elections to the European Parliament. I gather that yet another system of proportional representation is being considered for elections to regional assemblies—the next stage of constitutional developments.
I think that I should be hard put—I put it no higher—to cope with five different proportional representation systems. It worries me that, at this late stage, we have not seen any evidence of the Government's informing the voting public as to how we are to proceed. We ran what might be called—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is again straying on to a much wider point. We are discussing whether, in the European parliamentary elections, there should be an open or a closed list system. I ask her to confine her remarks to that point.

Miss McIntosh: On that point, I have yet to find a member of the voting public who is familiar enough with the ballot paper on which they will be asked to vote, under an open or a closed list system. We must persuade

members of the voting public to go out and vote, by persuading them that, under an open list system, they will have some choice in the matter. In local government elections and European Parliament elections, our biggest hurdle is getting the vote out. I do not believe that Labour Members would argue with that. Usually, turnout is 70 per cent. at general elections and as low as 35 per cent. to 38 per cent. in local government and European Parliament elections.
I am persuaded that an open list is the answer because this will be the first time, in my experience, that an elector will be unable to vote for an individual candidate, but must vote for a slate of candidates. I have taken up the matter with returning officers in at least three parts of the country who will be called on to police the new system for the first time. There is great concern that there will be confusion among the electorate, especially among first-time voters who will vote one way in May and another in June, but also among older voters who tend to prefer the use of a single system in all elections.
There is very great anxiety—on which I should like some satisfaction from the Government this afternoon—that there will be not only a lower turnout but in all probability a record number of spoilt ballot papers, because the voters will not understand that they must vote for a slate of candidates. The Bill says that, if any other mark is entered on the list of main party candidates—Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat—that paper must be treated as a spoilt ballot paper. Another possibility is that there will be a great surge of voting for independent candidates—for a television personality, for example—because, by doing so, voters can vote for a single name on the ballot paper.
There are extremely compelling arguments in favour of an open list system. It is not too late to change from a closed list to an open list. An open list will enable the electorate to vote for an actual candidate and, following the election, it will maintain a democratic link between the elector and the elected Member of the European Parliament. I therefore commend the open list system to the House; I hope that we obtain a majority in its support.

Mr. David Ruffley: I wish to support my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), but I have much sympathy with the comments of hon. Friends who have said that this is a rotten Bill—a Bill which introduces proportional representation, which is wholly undesirable. However, I shall not try your patience, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The question of closed list versus open list goes to the heart of an important constitutional principle, which my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) touched on twice—the principle that the individual elector should have the right to choose an individual Member of Parliament or Member of the European Parliament. For the first time in modern democracy in this country, the voter will be denied that right.
This is not just an arcane debate. The power that will be concentrated in party headquarters, not merely in the case of the Labour party but in the case of the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative party, is profoundly unhealthy. After a term of Parliament, there may be electors who are not happy about the MEP, whether he is a Labour, Liberal Democrat or Conservative MEP, who


is top of the list. Under the proposed arrangements, if a sitting MEP wants to be readopted by his party, he is more likely to be reselected if he has toed the party line. That will inevitably lead to slavishness on the part of those at the top of the list under a closed list system.
6 pm
Those concerns are not expressed on a party political basis. Lord Shore of Stepney observed in another place that such a system would lead to cronyism. Lord Bruce of Donington argued in incendiary terms that it would not be dissimilar to communism and central party committee control.
The democratic right of an individual elector in Britain to remove an elected Member of Parliament who has not done the job or who may have put party before constituency will be denied by the closed party list. I know that the Minister and the Home Secretary take seriously such matters of principle. I should like to hear the Minister's response not to arcane arguments about closed and open lists, but to that issue of democratic principle.
I take issue with a point raised by the Home Secretary. He slipped into the convenient jargon describing first past the post as equivalent to a closed list of one. That is not entirely correct. Under a first-past-the-post system, when a Member of Parliament is not to the liking of a voter for whatever reason—possibly because of his views on abortion or on euthanasia—the voter can choose not to vote for that Member of Parliament. If, for similar reasons, a voter does not like an MEP at the top of a closed list and does not vote for him, he will also deny his vote to the second, third and fourth person on that list. There is therefore no equivalence between a closed list of one, allegedly, under the first-past-the-post system, and a closed list under the arrangements proposed in the Bill.

Mr. Beith: There is a straightforward equivalence. In both cases, if a voter withholds his or her vote from the candidate or the list because of some disagreement with a candidate, he denies that vote to the party. Under both systems, a voter cannot express an individual choice without, in effect, giving aid and comfort to another party. That is a dilemma that voters face under our present system.

Mr. Ruffley: The vote will be denied to more than one candidate under the system proposed to us in the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman and I are both right.
The Home Secretary adduced some deeply unconvincing arguments in support of the closed list system, echoing some of the unpersuasive arguments presented by the Minister in another place, Lord Williams of Mostyn. Some of the arguments in favour of the closed list were incredible. The noble Lord said that we were not living in an Athenian democracy. The implication was that it did not matter who the individual candidate was, because in any case people vote for a party.
At the margin, that is certainly not true. An MEP may have been voted in and have performed abysmally, or proved to be a scoundrel, but there is no possibility of removing a named individual. I raised that matter earlier, and I should like to hear the Minister's response.
One of the other arguments enlisted in another place and hinted at by the Home Secretary today was that the ballot paper would become too long and difficult to understand. However, if the amendment were accepted, the open list proposals would involve minimal changes to the ballot paper.
It is ludicrous of a Minister in another place to suggest that, if an open list system were adopted, it would take too long for a voter to make up his or her mind: voters would be in the polling booth for too long. I find those lines of argument from Ministers in support of the closed list system deeply unsatisfactory. I am shocked and amazed that the democratic process, which is subtle and sometimes complex, should be criticised on the basis that voters might spend too long in the polling booth.
I take issue with the interpretation that the Home Secretary placed on some of the focus group evidence that is in the public domain. I am not one of those Conservative Members who attack "focus group fascism". There may well be a role for focus groups for political parties. The formulation of policy may be assisted or modified by the use of such groups.
The evidence from NOP, and the ICM evidence which, I believe, the Democratic Audit has used and on which Charter 88 has done some work, suggests that voters resent the fact that their right to choose individual candidates would be taken away by a closed list system. In a Democratic Audit poll, 40 per cent. of voters resented the fact that they would not have an individual choice of candidate. The Home Secretary glossed over such evidence, but I hope that the Minister will respond. The evidence points towards more support for an open list system.
This is a rotten Bill. The arguments deployed by Ministers have been unconvincing and unpersuasive. By accepting the amendment, the damage might be limited. The entire Bill goes against the grain of constitutional principle, and grievously diminishes democracy in this country. In that spirit of constructive opposition, I hope that the Minister will answer the questions I have posed.

Mr. David Winnick: First, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I apologise. I had other duties in the House; otherwise I should have been present for most of the debate.
I find it a little strange to hear Conservative Members lecturing us about democracy, considering the lack of democracy until recently in their party.
I am not in favour of the closed list system. I did not vote for it on Second Reading, and I do not intend to vote for it tonight. However, it can be said to the credit of my party in government that I do not remember the last time any Government introduced an electoral system that could substantially reduce the number of their own elected representatives. Given the present number of Labour MEPs, one can speculate that there would be fewer as a result of a change in the electoral system. I hope that that will not happen, but no Conservative Member could challenge that possibility. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was right to say that the Government were being generous.

Mr. Desmond Swayne: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, whether we have an open list or a closed list, that will not alter the number of Members elected by each party—it will merely determine who they are as individuals?

Mr. Winnick: Yes. However, I am talking about the basic change in the system that will be applied next year instead of the present first-past-the-post system.
It could be argued that the system that operates in my party and in the other two main political parties will provide greater opportunities for candidates in terms of gender and race. When drawing up panels, attention is given to ethnic minority candidates and to women, who are not fully represented by any means under the present system. However, I have certain reservations about the system under debate, and I find it difficult to support.
It is vital that everything be above board when drawing up a panel. There should be no question of people's internal party political opinions being taken into account or of someone being considered to be something of a rebel. Nevertheless, the suspicion will remain that those who cannot be relied upon 100 per cent. to support the party line will be excluded. That is why I believe that there is a lot to be said for the open system. If we are to use proportional representation for European elections, it would be better to choose the open rather than the closed system.
I hope that this problem will not arise. I am talking not about the two Labour MEPs who were rightly expelled from the party but about MEPs who have been totally loyal to their party throughout their political lives and intend to remain so, but who do not necessarily agree with every dot and comma of party policy. They may dissent from time to time and may be described in the press as members of the awkward squad. I believe that we should not exclude such people in a democracy. If people perform a proper service, the fact that they might rebel occasionally should not be a cause for exclusion.
I am not saying that that has occurred. However, the system that we are considering today involves the operation of a panel of, I hope, fair-minded people who must decide which candidates will be ranked No. 1, 2, 3 and 4. It will take a lot to persuade me that someone who falls into the category that I have described will be ranked among the first three or four candidates. For those reasons, I have reservations about the measure. I did not vote for it previously, and I shall not do so tonight.
There will be no change in policy for next year's European elections. However, I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends who decide these matters and make their recommendations to the House will consider this issue carefully. It is right and proper that the Conservative view should be taken into account, but I am sure that Conservative Members will not misunderstand me when I say that I hope that, when it comes to deciding this matter for future European elections, my right hon. and hon. Friends will take my party's reservations seriously as well. I hope that I speak as a totally loyal member of my party, although I disagree with it on certain occasions—such as tonight. I must confess that I have wondered where I would be ranked if I were to stand for pre-selection as a Member of the European Parliament.
I believe that this has been a good debate, although I have missed a great deal of it. [Interruption.] The Assistant Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall), appears to disagree. What I have heard of the debate has been very useful—I hope that I have qualified my remarks to his satisfaction. I heard a great deal of the Home Secretary's speech, and I have been in the Chamber for the past 10 or 15 minutes.
It is undoubtedly true that the debate has raised matters that are very important to the democratic process. It is right and proper that we should debate those issues and, although I am a critic of the Lords, I believe that, on this occasion, they were right to reconsider the measure and return it to this place.

Mr. Swayne: The principal difficulty faced by the European Parliament is its perceived lack of democratic legitimacy, in that the people do not consider it their Parliament. We make that problem considerably worse when we rob that Parliament of what little legitimacy it has by introducing a system that ensures that candidates may be elected despite the fact that they have not received the specific votes of any electors. The amendment has certain weaknesses, but at least it addresses that difficulty.
The Secretary of State painted a scenario that I found persuasive in many respects. He said that, under the amendment, certain candidates could be elected having secured fewer votes than other candidates who were not elected. However, I suspect that the Government's principal difficulty is precisely that which I raised in earlier intervention—the overall numbers for each party will not change as a consequence of the amendment. It will merely change the candidates who would be elected rather than the number of candidates elected from either side. In that respect, the amendment addresses one of the elements of the current system that many people have found so distasteful.
We are effectively talking about a dialogue within the parties. Labour Members have complained that the selection system is not transparent. I also have some reservations about the system of candidate selection on my side. I had great difficulty persuading 3,500 members of my party to travel from the New Forest to docklands to spend a sunny day selecting candidates. I acknowledge that I failed in that task, as I managed to fill only one coach. However, at least we made the effort—although the same cannot be said for the Labour party.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. The terms of the amendments are very tight, and the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) is straying from them.

Mr. Swayne: The point that I am attempting to make is that the amendment offers the prospect of a primary election to members or supporters of a political party. That is vital. I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms), who said that the amendment has come too late because the parties have made their selections and stitched it up.

Mr. Bermingham: Earlier in the debate, I said that the problem with the Lords amendment is that it is an either/or amendment. If we were to opt for the open system, as the Lords suggest, we would disadvantage the major party candidates and the independent candidates. In the case of a vote for the party candidate named, the party still records a vote. However, a vote for the independent candidate is a vote only for that candidate, and no vote is recorded for a party. Therefore, the position of the independent candidate would upset the fairness that exists between all members of the same party within the list system.

Mr. Swayne: I accept the hon. Gentleman's point, and it is a persuasive one. However, our experience in this


country is that there are often not many independent candidates in these contests. That does not alter the principle of the matter but, given the number of options available to us, the open list is perhaps the best, and certainly the best available this evening.
As I was saying, my hon. Friend the Member for Poole said that it was too late to open up this issue. The advantage of the amendment is that it draws attention to what people clearly perceive as a stitch-up by political parties. That is important. Although some may find this hard to believe, there is great diversity of view within political parties, and that should be aired in the election.
It may be extraordinary, but there are members of the Liberal Democrat party who are not content with the pace of European integration and voted against the Maastricht treaty. That is not reflected in the party line of the Liberal Democrat party. There is a broad spectrum of view within the Conservative party and the Labour party. It is appropriate that that spectrum should be represented to the voters by names on the ballot paper so that they can select the candidate who represents their views most appropriately.
It is all very well for the Home Secretary to say, "Ah, but the people don't know. They have no idea who the candidate is, let alone what he stands for." I accept that that may be true, but there are ways of remedying that, and that is the purpose, to a large extent, of political parties. Their purpose is to register their voters and turn out their supporters. That has historically been the position. However, the effect of the substantive Bill rather than that of the amendment is that that will never happen. That is defeatism. It is turning away from the justified and proper effort to educate our people about the great issues of the day. It is for that reason, among others, that I support the amendment.

Mr. Andrew Lansley: I shall speak briefly. Earlier in the debate I had not intended to speak; however, having listened to it, it seemed to me that there were one or two points additional to those made in the debate in another place on this subject.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) has spoken, and I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) had some sympathy with his argument about not suddenly giving way to the Trojan horse of proportional representation. We are setting out to debate the different system that the other place has brought forward—a different system of PR—and not whether there should be a PR system as such. On that basis, those in another place were appropriately engaging in their role as a revising Chamber, and did so in an estimable fashion. It is incumbent upon us to consider the merits of the argument that they presented, not to return to an earlier debate of principle about whether there should be a PR or first-past-the-post system for elections to the European Parliament.
Within those confines I think that the other place, by means of the amendment, has shown that it is a useful adjunct to this debate in the sense of being free of control of government and has highlighted that it is free of control of party. At the heart of the amendment is a diminution of the power of party systems over the choice of candidate and who is to go forward to the European Parliament.
It may be at the margin but I suspect that it will be a significant margin, of difference if those who are put forward for the European Union parliamentary elections

are to be aware that their own appeal to the electorate will be significant in determining the overall result for their party and potentially the result for themselves as compared with other candidates.

Mr. Christopher Gill: I am obviously reluctant to intrude on the grief of the Labour party, but my hon. Friend makes a good point. In the west midlands—the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) is a west midlands Member—the person who is at the top of the Labour party list is someone who we have never heard of in the area, unless we happen to be addicts of the soap opera "EastEnders."

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's intervention is far too long. The amendment refers to the open list and the closed list and not to candidates.

Mr. Lansley: I think that my hon. Friend makes a relevant point in the sense that we might find under an open list system that a candidate who heads a list—for example, the Labour party's list in the west midlands—is the sort of candidate who might lose votes by comparison with others. It will become obvious by virtue of an open list system that that is the sort of candidate who is not supported.
The argument was presented in the debate in another place that the Labour party might be helped out of a certain difficulty in Wales over its candidate selection by the open list system. I suspect, although I am not privy to all the internal details of the Labour party's machinations—I rely upon the debate in another place—that a closed list system suits the Labour party in many respects. It has suited the Labour party in its ability to control the selection of candidates. I think that it suits it in the ranking of those candidates in the same way. From that point of view, my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) has usefully assisted my argument.

Mr. John Gummer: Will my hon. Friend ask this question of himself? If the Labour party is so keen on focus groups to tell the Government how they should run their policy, would not this system be a convenient sort of focus group so that they could see by the candidates who did best; the sort of policies and attitudes—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The amendment is far too narrow to enable us to get into these matters.

Mr. Lansley: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) takes me on to my next point. My first point was that the amendment creates a greater sense of accountability to electors rather than to party. As it happens—my right hon. Friend no doubt knew this and led me helpfully on to the point—the Labour Government went down the path of consulting focus groups on whether an open or closed list would be desirable. They found that the public took a negative view of a closed list and preferred an open list system.
In another place the Minister responding for the Government said, "Ah, but there is a significant difference in the response that you get to this question if you explain the issues and the respective systems to the voters."


That may be true, but it will not change the result finally. I suspect—here is the key point—that the public will not go into the polling booths on 10 June next year having examined the system of election minutely. They will go into the polling booths either dimly aware or not aware at all of the electoral system that is to be used, and they will be presented with a closed list system.
To me, and I imagine to many in the House, the list system is an alien one in the sense that voters repeatedly ask, "May I see who the candidate is?" I know that that is true for literature, for canvassing and for elections generally. Voters wish to know who the candidate is. They may be able to cross the bridge of the idea that they are being offered several different candidates, each of whom is related to the same party. However, to be divorced wholly, in effect, from the ability to choose a candidate is a very undesirable situation at which to arrive.
I wish to make two further points arising from the debate. First, I listened with care to the arguments presented about the perverse potential result that might arise, where under the proposed system referred to in the Lords amendment someone is not elected who had a greater number of express preference votes—personal votes—than someone who was elected. However, I think that the Government mislead themselves if they think that that is the key reason for resisting the amendment. It happens to be a transparent perversity that might occur under an open list system. Under a closed list system, many candidates might be elected who would be much less preferred by the electorate than those who are not elected.
The simple fact is that the closed list system denies us that knowledge. It denies us the ability to determine the personal preferences of the electorate when faced with the candidates. It denies that choice.
The Home Secretary was at pains to tell us that in Blackburn, with the parliamentary system that is employed for elections to this place, if someone wishes to vote for the Labour party he has to vote for the Home Secretary. That is true, but what the Home Secretary did not refer to—I wonder why he did not take this opportunity to think about it—is that there may be people in Blackburn who wish to vote for the Home Secretary without thinking that it was their preference to vote for the Labour party. That is the point. In the European elections, people may be swayed by the character of the candidate more than they are swayed by that candidate's party allegiance. It is important that we give vent for that. Voters demand it, the other place was right to ask for it, and I hope that the House will support it.

Mr. James Clappison: This has been an interesting and even-tempered debate, in which there has been a wide measure of agreement across the House. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) that the other place has done the House and the country a signal service in passing the amendments. It has fulfilled its constitutional function as an adjunct of this place and has given us an opportunity to think again about voter choice and the difference between open and closed lists. For all the complexity that

has arisen in certain quarters, the issue is simply whether voters have a choice about individual party candidates. The other place has given us a useful opportunity to explore why voters should be given such a choice.
I say that there has been a wide measure of agreement across the House on this because, apart from the Home Secretary's noble attempt to explain the d'Hondt system and all the rest—his contribution was perhaps not one of the simplest that he has made to the House—few voices have been raised on either side of the House in favour of the closed list system. The hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) made it clear that he did not like either system. He is a well-known champion of the first-past-the-post system, and he gave the House a good account of his views on that.
The hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) made it clear that he was opposed to the closed list system. On that basis, he made an honourable contribution. He said that, even if everything was above board and there was no question of any MEP's political opinions being taken into account or held against him in the selection process, an open list system would still be better, because it would be obvious that that was not happening. That was a fair point to make. Certainly in the case of the Labour party, whether any MEP's political opinions have been taken into account in the selection process has not been entirely self-evident in what has happened.
The strongest support for the Government came from the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan). Not for the first time, I am a little perplexed by the Liberal Democrats' attitude on this. When the matter came before the House on 12 March on Report, the hon. Gentleman argued in favour of the open list system, and said that it would maximise voter choice. That was the first time that the matter came back to the House after the Home Secretary had been considering it. The Liberal Democrats then voted with the Government in favour of closed lists.

Mr. Allan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Clappison: I shall give way in a moment.
Today, the hon. Gentleman said that it is now far too late for any changes to be made and that they should have been made earlie, but on 12 March, he said:
We hope that the Home Secretary and his team will return to the issue as the Bill proceeds through Parliament, give further consideration to the objective of maximising voter choice and, having listened to the arguments so eloquently made by hon. Members on both sides of the House, produce an open list system that will at least enact the spirit of our amendments, if they cannot accept them today."—[Official Report, 12 March 1998; Vol. 308, c. 777.]
The Liberal Democrats have been given such an opportunity today, but now they say it is too late, despite having argued for more time earlier. I give way to the hon. Gentleman to explain briefly all those contradictions.

Mr. Allan: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for quoting my words back at me. As the hon. Gentleman will discover if he looks at the record, between March and June this year we consistently argued the case for open lists, culminating in a vote in June in the other place in which my colleagues voted for that, and lost the vote by 15 votes with no support from the hon. Gentleman's


noble Friends. At that point we decided that the argument had been lost, and that the important thing was to get the Bill through.

Mr. Clappison: That sounds like a good each-way bet.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) made a highly principled speech which reflected his devotion to the first-past-the-post system, the case for which he put robustly.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) made an excellent speech with the advantage and experience of being an ex-MEP. He was firm that we were wrong to choose a closed list system. As he said, the Government seem determined to choose a system which maximises MEPs' anonymity. Surely, now that it is even more difficult for MEPs to make themselves known to their electorate and to form the sort of relationship with the elector which we would all want to see, because the constituencies are even bigger than they used to be having become part of these large regions, it is more important than ever that MEPs be given an opportunity to establish an individual relationship with groups within the electorate and, if possible, with individual electors. My right hon. Friend struck the right note when he said that we should be able to trust the people, and that people should be given a choice. The Government are denying people that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) made another excellent speech. He said that this is not a good Bill and that this issue goes to its heart.
My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh), who also speaks with experience of the European Parliament, had serious concerns about the system's effect on turnout. As she rightly said, this is the first time in the experience of the British electorate that an elector will go into the polling booth and have to vote for a party or slate, not for an individual. That is alien to our political traditions. The House will also have noted my hon. Friend's comments about the difficulties which returning officers may face as a result of the system chosen by the Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) made the important point, to which I shall return, that the system involves a concentration of power in party headquarters, which is profoundly unhealthy. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) made the important point that the system is not in the interests of voter choice.
Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire will have struck a note with many when he said that when voters go into the polling booth they want to know who a candidate is. I am sure that many hon. Members will have responded warmly to that sentiment.
The Home Secretary has done his best to sell the closed list system, but he has faced an impossible task. He has learnt this afternoon that there is no love on either side of the House for the closed list system. No organisation or commentator of any independence generally has had a good word to say about the closed list system. The right hon. Gentleman even set up a focus group to find some support for that system. It did not like it, either. The right hon. Gentleman tried to find some encouragement in his analysis of the Belgian electoral system. He put the paper about the Belgian electoral system in the House of

Commons Library, but for all the good that that did, the Home Secretary might as well have performed his party game of trying to name 10 famous Belgians. We did at least discover today that Mr. d'Hondt' s name means "dog" in Flemish.
As the Government's task has become more desperate, their arguments have become even more bogus. Very much at the last hour, the Government have produced a new argument—at least, one that has not been made too often before—that the system is being introduced for the benefit of women and ethnic minorities. That is an interesting proposition in view of the list which has been produced by the closed list system in my area in the eastern region.
Of the first five candidates on the list selected by the Labour party machine for that region—order is all-important—only one was a woman, although the bottom three candidates were all women. To the best of my knowledge, no one on the list was from an ethnic minority. At an open meeting on a wet afternoon in Newmarket, the Conservatives managed to produce at least one member of an ethnic minority—Mr. Bashir Khanbai—who is No. 3 on the list. He is an excellent candidate who stands every chance of being elected.

Mr. Ruffley: Is my hon. Friend aware that the noble Lord Evans of Parkside observed in the other place that, under the closed list system, 13 women and one black candidate are likely to be elected next year, compared with 13 women and one black person under the existing system? Thus there is no net gain and, even on its own terms, the closed list system fails.

Mr. Clappison: My hon. Friend has obviously been taking a close interest in this matter. His knowledge is greater than mine. I cannot speak for the generality of his argument, but I am sure that he is correct. I know from what we heard in the House earlier this afternoon that the system has at least produced an English MEP candidate at the top of the list in Wales. I do not know whether he counts as an ethnic minority, but it seems to have ruffled a few feathers.
The proposed system is bad. It is instructive that, given the Labour party's commitment to changing how we elect our MEPs, of all the systems that it could have chosen, it has chosen one that clearly emphasises central party control. We would have preferred retention of the first-past-the-post system, for which my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) made a robust case.
As the Home Secretary accepts, a number of other countries in Europe have various open list systems, which were all rejected in favour of a closed list system. Although he rightly says that some countries in Europe have closed list systems, so ours is not unique, his remarks must be qualified because, of all the countries in Europe with closed list systems—they are apparently in the minority—we will be the only country to operate a closed list system at a regional rather than a national level.
That is another characteristic of the Government's system that maximises central party control. It creates a double whammy for central party control, because voters will have no say about individual candidates, as they do in an open list system. Furthermore, it is difficult for smaller parties to be formed to contest elections nationally, because they have the disadvantage of having to operate at a regional level.
As many commentators, including the constitution unit, have noted, a closed list system at regional level maximises central party control. That gives us a glimpse of new Labour's real constitutional priorities and instincts. It is very much a new Labour system. If ever a system was rife for cronyism, this is it, with central party control and cronyism being exalted at all levels.
We think that the proposed system is bad and that one based on first past the post would have been much better. However, it is fair that we should debate open as opposed to closed list systems. All the points made by Opposition Members about voter choice have been well made. The proposed system is anathema to our constitutional system, and alien to our political traditions. It will be deeply regretted by many members of the electorate when they discover that they can no longer choose an individual candidate of a party and that everything is handed down to them by central party bosses who think that they know best. That is wrong.
The Lords were right to raise this issue and give us another chance to discuss whether voters should have a choice or whether that choice should be taken away by new Labour and its apparatchiks.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Howarth): I concur with the opening remark of the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison—that this has been a good debate. It has been interesting, and hon. Members have made important points well. I congratulate all those who have participated.
The hon. Gentleman criticised the regional list system proposed by my party in Wales, on the grounds that an Englishman is at the top of the list. I find that criticism strange coming from a party which, when in government, could not even produce a Secretary of State for Wales who was not English.

Sir Norman Fowler: I would move on from that point, if I were you.

Mr. Howarth: I might just say that, so successful was Conservative stewardship of Wales under an English Secretary of State that it no longer has a single parliamentary seat there, so the hon. Member for Hertsmere need not lecture us on who is fit to govern and represent Wales.
The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) made a couple of interesting points.

Mr. Ruffley: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Howarth: I shall come to the hon. Gentleman in a minute. I wish first to refer to the points made by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire, who said that the House of Lords had done us a service in passing the amendment. Some of his right hon. and hon. Friends may share that view, but to portray the House of Lords as a defender of democracy is unlikely, particularly as 50 of those who supported the amendment were hereditary peers. It is a bizarre spectacle to set up hereditary peers

as heroes for supporting such a measure, which the hon. Gentleman thinks brings greater democracy, especially as the amendment was passed by a majority of only 25 votes. That casts doubt over the role of hereditary peers
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) made an interesting speech, summing up the difficulty of those who might prefer a different system. The way in which the amendment has come from the House of Lords does not leave much choice. He rightly cast doubt on the motives of many of those who voted in the other place. We do not know exactly what considerations went through their minds, but the hon. Gentleman made a valid point. I welcome the fact that, in the circumstances, he feels it appropriate to support us in the Lobby tonight.
The right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) quoted my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who said earlier that it is important that any electoral system should be appropriate to the body being elected. He went on to disagree with my right hon. Friend about the appropriateness of the proposed system. In a characteristically thoughtful speech, he said that he disliked the extent to which party labels would be the foremost consideration in the system that we have chosen, which we would call a "simple list" or "closed list" system.
It is incumbent on all those who represent a political party to make this simple point: representing a political party has a meaning. By identifying ourselves with a political party, we convey a particular set of values and policies, and we associate ourselves with those values. It is important that anybody who gets his or her name on to a party list reflects the values and policies that attach to that party. In that sense, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon should examine whether it is important that a party label has that meaning, and that there is an endorsement from that party for any particular candidate.

Mr. Curry:: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Howarth: In a moment; I want to make an important point for any party about a problem that his party has and mine had in the past.
When it becomes unclear to the electorate precisely what a political party represents, that party gets into difficulty with the electorate. I say, quite openly, that my party got into difficulties with the electorate in the early 1980s, when it was not entirely clear what it represented. The same applied at the previous general election—in equal, if not greater, measure—for the right hon. Gentleman's party, because it was not entirely clear what it stood for, what its values were and what policies it represented.
Political parties have a duty, not only to themselves but to the electorate, to protect what they stand for. A list system along the lines that we propose is one way in which we can do that.

Mr. Curry: I do not dissent from what the Minister says about our being elected with party labels, but he knows that a significant number of his party's MEPs, who presumably shared the values that he is talking about, are being replaced. A committee is putting forward a different set of people, presumably with the same values. That happened to some extent in my party, but at least it was


done by all the members. Does he not think that that will give a problem to the electorate, who will wonder why a committee has apparently removed one set of people to replace them with another? The electorate will not be given the choice.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are going wide of the Lords amendments. We are discussing a closed list or an open list.

Mr. Howarth: I took part in my party's selection procedure as a member. Members were consulted, and the system took their views into account, but, because the list was regional, my party had a particular right to say that being on that list must mean something in policy terms.
The hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) raised a particular point about the different systems that apply in different parts of Europe. Let me confirm what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary told her in a letter: Germany, France, Greece, Portugal and Spain all sign up to a system similar to the one that we propose. Those who are covered by that system form a majority of voters in Europe, and we are adding Britain to that system. The hon. Lady was correct to say that nine European countries have open list systems.
The hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), who was about to leave the Chamber, but has come back again, let the cat out of the bag about the difficulty that Conservative Members have. They want first past the post under all circumstances, no matter how inappropriate it is to the body that is being elected. We have had a debate—the hon. Gentleman was quite open about this—predicated on the belief, which was unstated in many cases, that Conservative Members would prefer ordinary constituencies, such as those that we have used in the past, with a first-past-the-post system. We do not believe that that is the most appropriate way of electing the European Parliament.

Mr. Cash: Does the Minister accept that a Stalinist approach has been adopted to get rid of Ken Coates and others? [Interruption.] Does he also accept that that shows that the Labour party and the Government intend—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is far too wide of the amendment. I also appeal to hon. Members: the House must come to order. There are far too many conversations around the Chamber.

Mr. Howarth: I will not be tempted along that line, Mr. Deputy Speaker, given your strictures, and because I have already answered the point. The hon. Member for Stone made an honest case, but not one that I agree with.
My hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) raised a couple of points: his concern about turnout in the European elections as a result of whatever system we adopt, and Sunday voting. I shall deal with those in turn.
I share the concern about turnout, not only in the European election, but in general. I chair a working party, on which the Conservative party, the Liberal party and many experts sit, which is considering electoral arrangements. They are one of the issues that we want to address, and they are a problem in Europe, although that problem does not relate exclusively to Europe.
We all have a duty. I was involved in the launch of the "Get the Vote Out" campaign last week, and it will be helping. It is incumbent on political parties also to try to get the vote out at the election, whether they like the system or not. I hope that we all play our part.
It would be unwise to use Sunday voting on this occasion. We will be using a proportional regional list system for the first time, which is a major change. That may affect turnout, and moving to Sunday voting may do the same. We would not know the weight of one factor against the other in that equation, so I would rather have one change at a time so that we can measure it.

Mr. Bermingham: Will my hon. Friend give me a straight answer to a straight question: does he think that the new system will increase or decrease the turnout next June?

Mr. Howarth: I do not know. That will depend on how hard we all campaign, and how other bodies support us in that campaigning to make sure that people believe that it is important that they go out and vote.
As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, no electoral system is perfect. The most important thing is that we choose the one that produces the best and fairest result, which this one will. It is important that we choose a system that is appropriate to the body that is being elected. This one is appropriate, and I urge my hon. Friends to support it. There is no perfect solution, but this is the best available, and, in the long run, it will prove itself at the elections.

Question put, That this House does disagree with the Lords in the said amendment:—

The House divided: Ayes 338, Noes 131.

Division No. 367]
[6.56 pm


AYES


Abbott, Ms Diane
Brown, Russell (Dumfries)


Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)
Browne, Desmond


Ainger, Nick
Buck, Ms Karen


Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)
Burden, Richard


Alexander, Douglas
Butler, Mrs Christine


Allan, Richard
Byers, Rt Hon Stephen


Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)
Caborn, Richard


Armstrong, Ms Hilary
Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)


Ashton, Joe
Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)


Atkins, Charlotte
Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife)


Austin, John
Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)


Banks, Tony
Campbell-Savours, Dale


Barron, Kevin
Caplin, Ivor


Bayley, Hugh
Casale, Roger


Beard, Nigel
Caton, Martin


Begg, Miss Anne
Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)


Beith, Rt Hon A J
Chaytor, David


Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)
Chidgey, David


Bennett, Andrew F
Chisholm, Malcolm


Benton, Joe
Clapham, Michael


Bermingham, Gerald
Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)


Berry, Roger
Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)


Best, Harold



Betts, Clive
Clark, Paul (Gillingham)


Blears, Ms Hazel
Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)


Blizzard, Bob
Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)


Borrow, David
Clelland, David


Bradley, Keith (Withington)
Clwyd, Ann


Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)
Coaker, Vernon


Bradshaw, Ben
Coffey, Ms Ann


Brinton, Mrs Helen
Cohen, Harry


Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)
Coleman, Iain






Colman, Tony
Hinchliffe, David


Connarty, Michael
Hodge, Ms Margaret


Cook, Rt Hon Robin (Livingston)
Hoey, Kate


Cooper, Yvette
Hood, Jimmy


Corbett, Robin
Hope, Phil


Cotter, Brian
Howarth, George (Knowsley N)


Cousins, Jim
Howells, Dr Kim


Cranston, Ross
Hoyle, Lindsay


Crausby, David
Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)


Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)
Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)


Cummings, John
Humble, Mrs Joan


Cunliffe, Lawrence
Hurst, Alan


Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)
Hutton, John


Cunningham, Ms Roseanna(Perth)
Iddon, Dr Brian



Illsley, Eric


Dalyell, Tam
Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)


Darling, Rt Hon Alistair
Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)


Darvill, Keith
Jenkins, Brian


Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)
Johnson, Alan (Hull W& Hessle)


Davidson, Ian
Johnson, Miss Melanie(Welwyn Hatfield)


Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)



Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)
Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)


Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H)
Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)


Dawson, Hilton
Jones, Helen (Warrington N)


Dean, Mrs Janet
Jones, Ms Jenny(Wolverh'ton SW)


Dismore, Andrew



Dobbin, Jim
Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)


Donohoe, Brian H
Jowell, Ms Tessa


Doran, Frank
Keeble, Ms Sally


Dowd, Jim
Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)


Drown, Ms Julia
Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth


Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)
Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)


Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)
Khabra, Piara S


Edwards, Huw
Kidney, David


Efford, Clive
Kilfoyle, Peter


Ellman, Mrs Louise
King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)


Ennis, Jeff
Kumar, Dr Ashok


Ewing, Mrs Margaret
Ladyman, Dr Stephen


Fatchett, Derek
Lawrence, Ms Jackie


Fearn, Ronnie
Laxton, Bob


Field, Rt Hon Frank
Lepper, David


Fitzpatrick, Jim
Leslie, Christopher


Fitzsimons, Lorna
Levitt, Tom


Flint, Caroline
Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)


Follett, Barbara
Lewis, Terry (Worsley)


Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)
Linton, Martin


Foster, Michael J (Worcester)
Livsey, Richard


Foulkes, George
Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)


Galloway, George
Llwyd, Elfyn


Gapes, Mike
Lock, David


Gardiner, Barry
McAllion, John


Gerrard, Neil
McAvoy, Thomas


Gilroy, Mrs Linda
McCabe, Steve


Godsiff, Roger
McCafferty, Ms Chris


Goggins, Paul
McCartney, Ian (Makerfield)


Golding, Mrs Llin
McDonagh, Siobhain


Gordon, Mrs Eileen
Macdonald, Calum


Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)
McGuire, Mrs Anne


Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)
McIsaac, Shona


Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
McKenna, Mrs Rosemary


Grocott, Bruce
Mackinlay, Andrew


Gunnell, John
McLeish, Henry


Hain, Peter
Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert


Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)
McNamara, Kevin


Hall, Patrick (Bedford)
McNulty, Tony


Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)
MacShane, Denis


Hanson, David
Mactaggart, Fiona


Heal, Mrs Sylvia
McWalter, Tony


Healey, John
McWilliam, John


Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)
Mahon, Mrs Alice


Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)
Marek, Dr John


Hepburn, Stephen
Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)


Heppell, John
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)


Hesford, Stephen
Marshall-Andrews, Robert


Hewitt, Ms Patricia
Martlew, Eric


Hill, Keith
Maxton, John





Meale, Alan
Shipley, Ms Debra


Merron, Gillian
Short, Rt Hon Clare


Michael, Alun
Singh, Marsha


Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)
Smith, Angela (Basildon)


Milburn, Alan
Smith, Miss Geraldine(Morecambe & Lunesdale)


Miller, Andrew



Moffatt, Laura
Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)


Moonie, Dr Lewis
Smith, John (Glamorgan)


Moran, Ms Margaret
Snape, Peter


Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)
Soley, Clive


Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W)
Southworth, Ms Helen


Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)
Spellar, John


Mountford, Kali
Squire, Ms Rachel


Mullin, Chris
Steinberg, Gerry


Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)
Stevenson, George


Naysmith, Dr Doug
Stewart, David (Inverness E)


Norris, Dan
Stewart, Ian (Eccles)


Oaten, Mark
Stinchcombe, Paul


O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)
Stoate, Dr Howard


O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)
Straw, Rt Hon Jack


O'Hara, Eddie
Stringer, Graham


Olner, Bill
Stuart, Ms Gisela


O'Neill, Martin
Sutcliffe, Gerry


Öpik, Lembit
Swinney, John


Osborne, Ms Sandra
Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann(Dewsbury)


Palmer, Dr Nick



Pearson, Ian
Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)


Pendry, Tom
Taylor, David (NW Leics)


Perham, Ms Linda
Temple-Morris, Peter


Pickthall, Colin
Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)


Pike, Peter L
Timms, Stephen


Plaskitt, James
Tipping, Paddy


Pollard, Kerry
Todd, Mark


Pope, Greg
Touhig, Don


Pound, Stephen
Trickett, Jon


Powell, Sir Raymond
Truswell, Paul


Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)
Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)


Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)
Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)


Prescott, Rt Hon John
Twigg, Derek (Halton)


Primarolo, Dawn
Vaz, Keith



Vis, Dr Rudi


Prosser, Gwyn
Walley, Ms Joan


Purchase, Ken
Ward, Ms Claire


Quin, Ms Joyce
Wareing, Robert N


Quinn, Lawrie
Watts, David


Rammell, Bill
Webb, Steve


Rapson, Syd
White, Brian


Raynsford, Nick
Whitehead, Dr Alan


Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)
Wicks, Malcolm


Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)
Wigley, Rt Hon Dafydd


Roche, Mrs Barbara
Williams, Rt Hon Alan(Swansea W)


Rogers, Allan



Rooker, Jeff
Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)


Rooney, Terry
Willis, Phil


Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)
Wilson, Brian


Roy, Frank
Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)


Ruddock, Ms Joan
Wood, Mike


Russell, Bob (Colchester)
Woolas, Phil


Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)
Worthington, Tony


Ryan, Ms Joan
Wray, James


Salter, Martin
Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)


Savidge, Malcolm
Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)


Sawford, Phil
Wyatt, Derek


Sedgemore, Brian



Shaw, Jonathan
Tellers for the Ayes:


Sheerman, Barry
Mr. Graham Allen and Mr. David Jamieson.


Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert





NOES


Amess, David
Beresford, Sir Paul


Ancram, Rt Hon Michael
Blunt, Crispin



Body, Sir Richard


Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James
Boswell, Tim


Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)
Brady, Graham


Beggs, Roy
Brazier, Julian


Bell, Martin (Tatton)
Brooke, Rt Hon Peter


Bercow, John
Browning, Mrs Angela






Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)
Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David


Burns, Simon
Horam, John


Butterfill, John
Howard, Rt Hon Michael


Chapman, Sir Sydney(Chipping Barnet)
Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)



Hunter, Andrew


Chope, Christopher
Jack, Rt Hon Michael


Clappison, James
Jackson, Robert (Wantage)


Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)
Jenkin, Bernard


Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey
Johnson Smith, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey


Collins, Tim



Colvin, Michael
Key, Robert


Cormack, Sir Patrick
King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)


Cran, James
Laing, Mrs Eleanor


Curry, Rt Hon David
Lait, Mrs Jacqui


Davies, Quentin (Grantham)
Lansley, Andrew


Day, Stephen
Leigh, Edward


Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen
Letwin, Oliver


Duncan, Alan
Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)


Duncan Smith, Iain
Lidington, David


Evans, Nigel
Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)


Faber, David
Loughton, Tim


Fabricant, Michael
Luff, Peter


Flight, Howard
Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas


Forth, Rt Hon Eric
MacGregor, Rt Hon John


Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman
McIntosh, Miss Anne


Fox, Dr Liam
Maclean, Rt Hon David


Gale, Roger
McLoughlin, Patrick


Garnier, Edward
Major, Rt Hon John


Gibb, Nick
Malins, Humfrey


Gill, Christopher
Maples, John


Gillan, Mrs Cheryl
Maude, Rt Hon Francis


Gorman, Mrs Teresa
Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian


Gray, James
May, Mrs Theresa


Greenway, John
Moss, Malcolm


Grieve, Dominic
Nicholls, Patrick


Gummer, Rt Hon John
Norman, Archie


Hammond, Philip
Ottaway, Richard


Hawkins, Nick
Page, Richard


Hayes, John
Paice, James


Heald, Oliver
Paterson, Owen





Pickles, Eric
Townend, John


Prior, David
Trend, Michael


Randall, John
Tyrie, Andrew


Redwood, Rt Hon John
Viggers, Peter


Robathan, Andrew
Waterson, Nigel


Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)
Wells, Bowen


Rowe, Andrew (Faversham)
Whitney, Sir Raymond


Ruffley, David
Whittingdale, John


St Aubyn, Nick
Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann


Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian
Wilkinson, John


Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)
Willetts, David


Spicer, Sir Michael
Wilshire, David


Spring, Richard
Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)


Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John
Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)


Streeter, Gary
Woodward, Shaun


Swayne, Desmond
Yeo, Tim


Syms, Robert
Young, Rt Hon Sir George


Tapsell, Sir Peter



Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)
Tellers for the Noes:


Taylor, John M (Solihull)
Sir David Madel and Mrs. Caroline Spelman.


Taylor, Sir Teddy

Question accordingly agreed to.

Lords amendment disagreed to.

Lords amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 4 disagreed to.

Committee appointed to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to certain of their amendments to the Bill: Mr. James Clappison, Mr. Mike Hall, Mr. George Howarth, Mr. Paddy Tipping and Mr. Nigel Waterson; Mr. George Howarth to be the Chairman of the Committee; Three to be the quorum of the Committee. —[Mr. Mike Hall.]

To withdraw immediately.

Reasons for disagreeing to certain Lords amendments reported, and agreed to; to be communicated to the Lords.

Working Time

Mr. Ian Bruce: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sure that you, and all Members, will have been inundated with queries from constituents asking about the working time regulations. I was amazed to discover not only that the regulations were brought into force at a time when the House was not sitting, but that apparently only an hour and a half was available for us to debate 43 clauses and two schedules of what would constitute a major Bill.
Is there no way in which the House can protect itself and the constituents whom we have been sent here to represent by ensuring that the regulations are properly debated, and that the Government have a chance to amend any part of a measure that will otherwise cause enormous problems to all our constituents, including employers?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): I am guided by the rules of the House, according to which everything is in order.

Mr. John Gummer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Government to spend large sums advertising the fact that rural persons—meant to be shepherds—will be affected by the measure even before it has been passed?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is a matter for debate.

Mr. John Redwood: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Working Time Regulations 1998 (S.I., 1998, No. 1833), dated 30th July 1998, a copy of which was laid before this House on 30th July, be annulled. 
At last we have been allowed a debate on massively important regulations that will cost business £2,000 million a year, may well cost many people their jobs, and are yet another reason why business in this country will be less competitive and less successful.
The House will know that I have declared interests in the Register of Members' Interests; but I do not speak on behalf of any narrow sectional interest tonight. I speak on behalf of all who want more jobs, more economic success, more flexibility, more opportunity and more choice. My right hon. and hon. Friends have exposed the hollowness of the new deal, and the fact that so few people have been able to take advantage of that scheme and go on to find jobs. Tonight we are debating the way in which the Government are heaping regulation on regulation, making it much more difficult for people to find jobs in the normal course of market business.
Where is the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry? Did he discover that he had already done his work in time for this week, and decide to absent himself? Does he not realise that Ministers are not subject to regulation of this kind, and that we expect them to come to the House and answer when they are imposing such massive costs on business and making such differences to our economy?
Why did the Secretary of State allow no debate during the parliamentary year, up to the summer recess? We all knew that the work had to be done; we all knew that there

were contentious issues in regard to how the Brussels directive was to be implemented. We wanted a debate to ensure that it was implemented in the least intrusive and damaging way possible, but we were offered absolutely no debate.
We then discovered that the measure had been sneaked out in the summer recess. The Government hoped to get away with it, with absolutely no debate and practically no publicity. Business had to obey all the rules from 1 October; yet business was not to be properly informed, and the public and business were not to be given the opportunity, through Her Majesty's Opposition, to express their view on how the measure could be implemented in a less damaging way.

Mr. Gummer: Is not my right hon. Friend being a little unkind to the right hon. Gentleman who should be present—the Secretary of State? When this issue hit the headlines, the right hon. Gentleman made it his business to appear on as many television programmes, and as widely, as was possible, to explain his position to the rest of the country. Is it not odd that he has not made it his business to come here tonight? Perhaps he feels that other issues will dominate the television headlines today.

Mr. Redwood: I am not sure what my right hon. Friend meant by that last remark, but I think it is often the case that the present Secretary of State prefers spinning to working, and perhaps tonight he is spinning away. What he should understand, however, is that this is the place that should have the news first. This is the place where he should come, so that we can cross-examine him. This is the place where he should defend and enormously complicated set of rules and regulations. This is the place where he should try to explain to us why we must have one costly and cumbersome set of regulations to tackle the issue of working time now, and why, next spring, we must have another set of equally cumbersome and complex regulations that do not mesh with the system to control the minimum wage.
Would it not have been more sensible for the Secretary of State to put the two pieces of work together, with the aim of minimising the cost to business of record keeping and bureaucracy? Would it not have been common courtesy for him to come to the House to support his Minister of State, and to answer the questions himself? So often, the Minister of State has been left—by both the present Secretary of State and his predecessor—to answer difficult questions.
Obviously, the former President of the Board of Trade and the new Secretary of State know that their policies do not add up. They know that they are part of the problem that faces manufacturing, which is now in a state of crisis. So they leave the poor Minister of State on his own to try to deal with all our sensible and important queries.

Maria Eagle: Is the right hon. Gentleman really suggesting that those who are losing their jobs in manufacturing are doing so because they have three weeks' paid annual leave and are entitled to rest breaks and decent terms and conditions?

Mr. Redwood: I am about to argue that the reason why British business is becoming so uncompetitive and so many manufacturers are closing factories and sacking


their employees is that the Government have heaped too many costs and burdens on them; it is not one individual imposition. Of course we want decent terms and conditions of employment, but, if we take all the regulations and all the tax increases that the Government have hurled at British businesses, we get an insupportable burden, which has led many of them to close, and will lead to many more closing.
All too often now, I read in correspondence or in newspaper reports of companies that are not merely closing here, but opening an equivalent facility in more lightly taxed and regulated countries. It is a sign that the Government have turned the UK, in less than two years, from being people's first choice for new investment locations when running a global business, to being their first choice for closure, so badly have the Government damaged the environment in which companies trade.

Mr. David Chidgey: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Redwood: I will in just one minute, when I have developed my argument a little further.
I wonder whether the Government are aware that one job is being lost every 10 minutes. I wonder whether they realise that, on recent independent analysis, they have already, in the first two years of office, including the minimum wage next spring, pushed up the cost to business by 40 per cent. through additional regulation. Do they know that their own compliance cost assessment says that it is going to be more than £2,000 million a year to pay for working time? Does the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle) realise that the extra money will come out of business, which means less investment and less employment? [Interruption.]
We are all delighted to see that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry now realises that he should have been here all along to hear our arguments. I am sure that he did not enjoy going belatedly to his constituency to see why factories were closing there. If he stays for the rest of the debate, I and my right hon. and hon. Friends may be able to make him a little wiser about why it is that, under this Government, Britain has deteriorated so rapidly, and is now people's least preferred choice for new investment.
On top of the £2 billion working time regulations cost, we have an estimated £2.9 billion minimum wage cost coming in this spring, yet another reason why less profit and less revenue will be left in business coffers to pay for new jobs and new investment.
I have received evidence from those who are responsible for hiring temporary workers, a flexibility that some employees themselves like, as well as some companies. I am told that this regulation on its own imposes an 8 per cent. additional levy on the payroll cost of employing a temporary worker. Even the Secretary of State must realise that that will mean that fewer workers are employed.
I do not like that fact of economic life. I would like to be able to tell my constituents that there are going to be even more jobs, at ever higher rates of pay, with ever additional regulatory protection. We would all like to live in that world, but the Secretary of State must get real. He is always lecturing British business about the need to be more productive and more competitive. Every 8 per cent.

additional burden on payroll means fewer people employed and less successful business operations in the United Kingdom.
When this Government came to office, we were told that they had three priorities: education, education, education. I do not know whether the needle had stuck or they had just got lost in making the soundbite more interesting, but let me play one back to them. After 18 months in office, they have shown that their priority is not education, education, education—because they have been destroying great schools and doing a lot of damage, as my right hon. and hon. Friends have been pointing out—but regulation, regulation, regulation. It is that which will do so much damage to job prospects and opportunities in the United Kingdom.
This Government are making it too dear to do business in Britain. They are making it too dear to make things in Britain. That is the common theme behind the tragedy at Rover, the closure of Siemens, the closure of Fujitsu, the closure of Grove Cranes—behind that long list of factory closures and job losses that we have helped to chronicle and expressed our regret over—but it was an entirely predictable result of this Government's policies of sticking up sterling, interest rates and business taxes and increasing regulation. Cost after cost has been placed on business.
I am sure that the Secretary of State would tell us, were he to speak, that sterling is beginning to devalue, but does he not understand that the damage has been done by 12 or 15 months of very high sterling and by the persistence of extremely high interest rates—more than double the level of interest rates of our main competitors on the continent? It is this Government who have made it too dear to make things in Britain.

Mr. Chidgey: I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman in advance for interrupting the flow of his argument, but a few moments ago he said that companies were relocating to other countries, rather than into Britain. I wonder whether he could help the House by giving us some examples of the countries to which companies are relocating on the basis of labour costs, rather than staying in the UK.

Mr. Redwood: Companies are relocating to Asian and American locations. Even within the European Union, where there are tax differences, companies are relocating. Rank Xerox, for example, has recently announced the cessation of 500 jobs in the forest of Dean. They are going to the Republic of Ireland, where there is a huge tax advantage. I have made it clear that we have to look at tax and labour costs together—that this Government have imposed many additional burdens on business here, which causes the problems.

Mr. John Bercow: I am sure that the whole House will agree with my right hon. Friend that it is welcome news that the nomad has returned. The Secretary of State is making a half effort at listening, and is feverishly taking notes, but does my right hon. Friend not think that it would be useful if the Secretary of State felt able at the conclusion of the debate to deliver a half-competent response to it?

Mr. Redwood: My hon. Friend has made his own strong point in his inimitable way.
We want to know: why is it that the Government have chosen for the minimum wage different time periods and different record keeping from the working time regulations? We want to know why the two cannot be made compatible and be brought together. We wish to have some of the complexity explained through this House to the country at large.
Why, for example, have the Government chosen the particular formula on page 10 to calculate entitlement to leave? It would be too boring to read out the whole thing, but
(A x B)-C
where
A is the period of leave to which the worker is entitled under regulation 13(1);
B is the proportion of the worker's leave year which expired before the termination date"—
and so forth is not easy for someone who is running their small business, and is worried about where the next sales are coming from and how to renegotiate the overdraft against the background of this Government's difficult monetary policy. There is much complexity and lack of clarity in the proposals.
I have had a lot of correspondence from throughout the country complaining about the opacity of the regulations and the lack of helpfulness of the ministerial team at the Department of Trade and Industry in making them clearer to business. For example, a nursing home owner wrote to me saying:
These regulations have been brought in with no notice to small business. The first we heard of them was when a member of staff brought in an article from the Sunday Telegraph. 
On speaking to the DTI they seemed totally confused and offered not a great deal of assistance, seeming to know virtually nothing about the subject.
That is one of several that I could quote from people who have not recognised that this was coming because we did not have the proper parliamentary debate and the normal publicity that relates to it. When the DTI realised that it needed to do something about publicity, people found that there were not enough copies of the guide, and that the 74-page guide was not clear anyway.
The guide warned people that it was not authoritative, and that it might even be wrong. It said that there could be court cases that undermined what the guide said, so the DTI and Secretary of State were saying to business, "Go to expensive lawyers. Ask for their advice, because our 74-page guide cannot reassure you. If you must, try to read these opaque and complex regulations."

Mr. Ian Bruce: Has my right hon. Friend seen the cartoon on the front of the regulations, which shows a British worker effectively sawing off his own job, and trying to indicate that the Government have got themselves in a mess? I wonder whether the Minister really understood what message he was conveying to people.

Mr. Redwood: Yes, I saw that and I assumed that Ministers had neither checked the cartoon nor read the text inside, as otherwise they would have seen what an own goal it was in its apparent portrayal of the Government cutting themselves off by sawing the wrong

piece of wood on which they were precariously perched. The 74-page guide has made life more difficult, and the burden of DTI advice seems to be that people must go off to lawyers because they cannot be sure.
What extra financial provision is to be made throughout the public services to meet the extra cost? We know that that cost will be more than £2 billion a year, and that quite a bit of it will fall on service provision through public finance. Some nursing homes, for example, will have considerable extra costs. Those who have written to me say that the social services in their local authority have had no extra money, and that, if they try to put up their charges, they will doubtless be told that social services will have to buy fewer places.
Vulnerable people seem to be at risk unless the Government are prepared to route extra money into those social services funds, so that the same level of service can be provided and the public sector share of the £2 billion-plus cost of the regulations can be met. The Government should reassure all those people who may be at risk and tell them how much extra money will be put in to meet that cost in important public services. Over what period does the Secretary of State envisage that nursing homes, for example, will be allowed to put up their prices to cover the great additional cost and reassure all the people who need it that the care will continue to be provided?
The situation seemed to descend into farce when I read in the newspaper the other day that the Jubilee line completion date was gravely threatened because the work force wanted extra compensation in light of the regulations, and there was a threat of industrial action. It is a crowning irony for the Secretary of State, who prides himself on being able to see the dome through to a successful conclusion, that his own regulations, which he pushed through so casually in the summer recess, hoping that no one would notice, should have caused such industrial disruption to the construction of the Jubilee line, the timely completion of which is crucial to the dome project.
We want to know more about the exceptions. I am sure that many Labour Members would prefer the minimum of exceptions, because they believe that one can legislate for higher standards rather than working to achieve them in an enterprise economy. Why, then, are there so many exemptions? Why are all those working in
air, rail, road, sea, inland waterway and lake transport … sea fishing … other work at sea; or … doctors in training
exempted, but not others who might feel that their industry or activity warranted an exemption?

The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Mr. Ian McCartney): I want to help the right hon. Gentleman. Perhaps he has forgotten that, when he was a member of the previous Government, it was negotiated with the European Commission that those sectors would be dealt with separately because of their specific needs. That is exactly what is happening, and consultation is taking place. He made the point to attack the Government, but in fact he is attacking the previous Government, of which he was a member.

Mr. Redwood: I am not attacking the previous Government, who did not want any of these regulations, but were unable to persuade our European partners


through the courts. We would have been forced into implementing the regulations, but we would have done so in a far less damaging and costly way.
It is for the Minister to explain why, given that he is a believer in such regulation, he is exempting all those groups. There is nothing to stop him including everyone in the regulations, if he thinks that they are such a good idea. Why are those groups, representing a substantial chunk of the economy, left out of a protection that he considers valuable? If the answer is that they need the extra flexibility to have a successful industry with good labour relations, why does that not apply to other groups? Why does he not go back to Brussels with another list of groups that need similar treatment?
We were told that the Government would pride themselves on having a lot of influence in Brussels. I would not mind betting that they have not tried to renegotiate anything in the regulations, and that they have not returned to Brussels after the court case, as we would have done, to say that they were still not happy and wanted to negotiate something better. I do not suppose that they have expressed any interest in the subject around the ministerial table in Brussels. I take the grins on Ministers' faces as confirmation of that.
The Secretary of State is very good at asking people to work longer hours. He asked the Conran shop to stay open longer than normal so that he could complete his shopping, and when 1 visited the Birmingham motor show on Friday, I learned that he had asked for it to open early on Wednesday so that he could get back in time for a private lunch that he thought was very important.
It is ironic that the right hon. Gentleman, who, whether with a talking or with a silent part, has come to propose the regulations to the House, should himself have encouraged workers to break, or to get dangerously close to breaking, them for his own convenience. He is an important and influential man, but he is not yet royalty, and there must be limits to what he can expect of those in shops and motor shows.
Will the Minister confirm that Members of Parliament are exempt? Many of us would find it difficult to carry out all our functions in a 48-hour week. I believe that there is some doubt about the position of the Speaker. That should be clarified: is there any special circumstance in which someone working loyally for the service of the House as a whole could be in a different category from those of us who, I trust, are assumed to be more independent and are exempt from the regulations?
It is widely agreed by independent commentators, as well as by Conservative Members, that the incoming Government received a very fine economic legacy. It was a golden legacy, with low inflation; reasonable growth; reducing unemployment; a flexible work force; and living standards and real wages rising at a pace that the economy could sustain, in the context of a successful enterprise economy.
Eighteen months on, there is growing evidence of a downturn made in Downing street, with closure after closure, job loss after job loss and problem after problem. The Minister must answer on that general issue as it applies to this debate. Will not he concede that every such regulation, reducing flexibility and imposing additional costs, makes it more difficult for the enterprise economy to work and for us to achieve the improvement in living standards and in terms and conditions that always comes when an economy is growing or flourishing?
The paradox may be that, through the regulations, more people will lose their jobs and fewer will have decent living standards and quality of employment, because the regulations are part of the process by which the golden economic legacy is being squandered.
We have some positive recommendations, should the Minister be interested. We should like him to take away the regulations and come back with an improved version. He has to do something, as we know that he will not negotiate the cessation of the regulations from Brussels. We want him to consider whether more exemptions would be sensible, and to come up with less onerous record keeping. Much of the cost will be in record keeping, not improving people's jobs, but creating a lot of bureaucracy. That is simply throwing money down the drain. The Minister should reconsider the record keeping, in the light of the equally onerous record keeping that he is soon to demand for the minimum wage.
We should like the Minister to offer, even at this late stage, a better guide for businesses: 74 pages offering no guarantees is not satisfactory, and the language of the regulations is not clear for the normal entrepreneur running a small or medium business, who has better things to do than wade through this kind of stuff in the afternoon or late at night.
We definitely want clarification from the Secretary of State and his colleagues about how the public sector is to handle the large share of the cost that will fall on public services. We desperately need to know that those in nursing homes, for example, will continue to get their care, and that adequate extra money will be provided to pay for the costs that will fall on that sector.
Above all—from a Government who say that they are about creating jobs and opportunities—we want a proper statement of the impact of all that cost on jobs. Why is there no impact statement on jobs? The Department must have done work on that matter, and knows that every extra £ billion of business cost results in less investment and fewer jobs. Will Ministers spell it out for us today, and honestly tell the nation what the cost will be? How many more factories? How many more times will I turn on my television or Ceefax in the morning and have to learn of another factory closing because the costs are simply too great?
The Government are wrecking the business bottom line. Wrecking the business bottom line means that there will be less business in Britain. Businesses will go elsewhere; they will shut down here. Will Ministers listen before it is too late, and before the Secretary of State is known and remembered only as the Minister for recession?

Mr. Alan Johnson: I speak in this debate more in sorrow than in anger, and as one who argued for many years in the trade union movement—it was not always an easy argument—that the movement should undergo a sea change by moving away from legal immunities and always depending on free collective bargaining, and towards positive rights and minimum standards. I argued that, if we did that in the United Kingdom, since no mainstream political party could oppose basic minimum standards, we would prevent exploitation and safeguard the rights of the most vulnerable. I argued that no political party entering government would ever dare to interfere with those minimum standards.
Although it is arguable whether the Conservatives are any longer a mainstream party, it is sad that a once great political institution should be demeaning itself by opposing such modest steps to prevent the exploitation of British workers. Conservative Members' opposition to such provisions is sad and makes them unique, even among the centre right parties on the continent.
Conservative Members have had a difficult time with the issue of working time regulations. First, they humiliated the United Kingdom by trying to evade the law and losing, hands down, at the European Court of Justice. Ultimately, they humiliated themselves. All they achieved—belonging, as they do, to the party of Church and the family—was the removal from the regulations the principle that Sunday should be the statutory day off.
Conservative Members then went to the country in a general election. I have a document—it is not easy to find a copy—published before the general election that is known as the Conservative party manifesto. It is perhaps known also as the shortest suicide note in history. It states:
We will insist at the Intergovernmental Conference in Amsterdam that our opt-out is honoured and that Britain is exempted from the Working Time Directive".
There were not many specific pledges in that document, but that was one, and it was emphatically rejected at the general election by the British people.
Conservative Members deluded themselves into believing that they could continue to fool the British work force by making the essentially unpatriotic argument that it would somehow be good for people working in British factories for our country to be the exploitation capital of Europe. The British people emphatically rejected that attempt.
After the views of the Conservative party were rejected on 1 May 1997, the Labour Government went to Amsterdam and re-engaged in the process of civilised and mature politics. I honestly thought that, after their devastating defeat, Conservative Members would listen and learn from their experience. I really thought that they would realise that there had been a change not only in the United Kingdom but in the thinking of the trade union movement on how we should proceed in ensuring basic minimum standards at work. Conservative Members' motion on today's Order Paper shows that they are simply wallowing in their humiliation.

Mr. Ian Bruce: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Johnson: No; there is no time to give way. It is a short debate, and other hon. Members wish to speak.
Once again, Conservative Members are spouting their basically unpatriotic argument. They say that the issue is one of burdens on business. An example of a burden on business was the passage of legislation insisting that, every three years, employers had to approach workers to discover whether they were still happy to pay their union dues out of their pay each week, through check-off. Moreover, every time union dues were increased, the legislation required employers to write to every employee to discover whether he or she was still keen to continue doing what he or she had done for years. That is a burden on business.
On the principle of not imposing burdens on business, Conservative Members oppose passing regulations that will ensure basic, decent workplace standards. The regulations will not affect the practices of the vast majority of good British employers, but will help to tackle exploitation.
I have been a member of the Trade and Industry Committee for only a short time. However, shortly after the general election, because of Conservative Members' arguments that companies would make inward investment in the United Kingdom only if we opted out of the social chapter, we conducted an investigation into inward investment, and quizzed everyone to whom we spoke on the matter. As the evidence shows, the issue of the United Kingdom opting out of the social chapter did not crop up once among the firms to which we spoke about inward investment. The issues that they cared about most were training, skills and local facilities. Not once was the social chapter raised.
The Opposition have always opposed decent standards—whether in health and safety, equal opportunities or maternity rights—on the basis that providing decent standards would be a burden on British business. I think that British business understands that we now have a Government who subscribe to principles that are very different from those of the Opposition. I am happy for that difference in principles to define the difference between the Government and the Opposition. I hope that the House will reject the Conservative motion and pass the regulations.

Mr. Christopher Gill: This is a very short debate, and I shall therefore make my speech a very brief one. The hon. Member for Hull, West and Hessle (Mr. Johnson) said that he was speaking in this debate more in sorrow than in anger. I speak in the debate in anger. I am very angry, on three counts—not least of which is the fact that the Government did not give the House an opportunity to debate the regulations before they came into effect on 1 October 1998.
Before I tabled early-day motion 1637, on 30 July 1998—effectively the last full working day before the summer recess—I checked with the Table Office to obtain a copy of the regulations. By mid-afternoon on that day, the regulations were still not available, although there was a hint that they might be available the following Friday morning. Such a situation is simply unacceptable. We are dealing not with run-of-the-mill regulations but with a very significant and expensive measure indeed.
The Government have acted disgracefully on the regulations. They could have made parliamentary time available to debate the regulations if they had wanted to. They failed to do so, and have thus shown their contempt for Parliament.
The second point that makes me angry is the fact that the Government, because of their handling of the regulations, have gratuitously imposed a huge cost burden on British industry. The hon. Member for Hull, West and Hessle has his own perspective on the matter, but that perspective is not shared by employers who are trying to run businesses in an increasingly competitive world.
I remind the hon. Member for Hull, West and Hessle of the new costs that will be imposed on British business. In the first full year, the costs will be £1.9 billion. In 12


months' time—because of the additional week's paid leave coming into effect—that £1.9 billion will increase to £2.3 billion. But the costs will not end there. According to the cost compliance statement, at paragraph 3.26 of annexe E3 of the consultation paper:
It is assumed that the total cost of enforcing the Working Time Regulations could fall in the range £63.5-£6.3 million.
That cost deals only with enforcing the regulations.
Paragraph 3.27 states:
It is assumed that the enforcement of the Working Time Regulations could increase the industrial tribunals workload by an additional 3,000–6,000 industrial tribunal cases per annum.
It goes on:
It is estimated that the enforcement of the Working Time Regulations could increase the workload of the HSE"— 
the Health and Safety Executive—
by between 10 and 25 per cent.
The Government must be aware of all those factors. They must be aware of the huge burden of cost and bureaucracy that they are imposing on employers. Conservatives are certainly acutely conscious of those things, and we are determined to do all that we can to help employers remain competitive by opposing the regulations.
The effect of the regulations on this nation's competitive edge will be devastating. It is all very well for the Secretary of State, who is no longer in his place, to tell British industry to sharpen up its act and improve productivity. I can tell him that what British industry needs is help, not hectoring.
I shall give just one example from the real world of trade and industry to illustrate my point. The sawmilling industry is facing a grave crisis. In England and Wales, 22 mills have between them shed 485 workers. In the harvesting industry, approximately—

Mr. Alan Johnson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I understand that the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) has registered shareholdings in a company but has not declared that fact in the debate; surely he should have done so at the beginning of his contribution.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a matter for the Chair.

Mr. Gill: My interests are well known, and they are of course declared in the Register of Members' Interests.
My point is that 22 companies in the timber industry in England and Wales have shed 485 jobs, which is leading to a further 100 job losses in the harvesting industry. The hon. Member for Hull, West and Hessle (Mr. Johnson) should know that that is because we are competing with countries that can provide us with timber very much more competitively. In Latvia, which is providing so much of that timber and putting British sawmills out of business,

wages are not £3.60 an hour, or the minimum wage, but £2 a day. What are we doing in the face of that competition?

Maria Eagle: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Gill: No, I want to leave time for other hon. Members to speak, because it is important that we hear your arguments and I intend to complete my arguments before I sit down.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Does the hon. Gentleman expect me to give my argument?

Mr. Gill: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but, as I said at the outset, I am very angry about what is happening.
I am about to give the third reason for my anger, but I shall first give way to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg).

Mr. Douglas Hogg: My hon. Friend said that there were three reasons for his anger, and he was just about to tell us the third. I suggest that there is a fourth reason, which is the lack of clarity in the regulations themselves, especially with regard to the definition of working time and whether it extends to long travel periods. If people travel to the far east on their employers' business, does that fall within the definition of working time? Does my hon. Friend agree that that is simply not clear from the documentation?

Mr. Gill: My right hon. and learned Friend draws attention to a very important point. Industry feels that all these matters should have been clarified in advance of the publication of the regulations. The point that I was making, with which I am sure my right hon. and learned Friend agrees, was that the regulations were not available before they were implemented. As he knows, they came into effect on 1 October, but only now do we have an opportunity to debate how they might affect our industries. The Government's view is that cases such as that which my right hon. and learned Friend instanced will have to be tested in the courts.
The third reason why I am angry is that the Government went to Amsterdam and simply caved in over the regulations. Before the election, the Conservative Government had challenged the legal base of the working time directive in the European Court of Justice, arguing that it was not a genuine health and safety measure. The Court ruled against the United Kingdom on 12 November 1996. My right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) then sought a reversal of that decision at the intergovernmental conference that led up to Amsterdam, and threatened not to sign the treaty unless that was agreed. That is an example of the Conservative Government trying to get the best possible deal out of the European Union. What have this Government done? As soon as they were elected, they went to Amsterdam, caved in and accepted the regulations in toto.
I promised to be brief, so I conclude by saying—to the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) in particular—that we need answers to three questions. Why did not the Government provide an


opportunity for Parliament to debate the measures before they were put into effect? Does he not understand the devastating effect of placing a huge burden of overhead costs on British industry? Finally, why did the Government go belly up? Why did they cave in in Europe instead of getting a quid pro quo for their acquiescence to the regulations before us?

Maria Eagle: I am glad to have the opportunity that the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) would not give me to respond to what he said. He cited the example of the timber industry in Latvia—I do not know whether he is involved in that industry—to show that our competitors are paying workers in the saw mills as little as £2 a day. Is he suggesting that the only way that industry in this country can compete is by paying such wages? That is what he seems to be suggesting.

Mr. Gill: The hon. Lady knows perfectly well that that is not what I was suggesting. I was telling the House, especially Labour Members, that, if the Government continue to load British industry with overhead costs that are avoidable, they will make British business uncompetitive. My concern, although it might not be the hon. Lady's, is that that will put British people out of work.

Maria Eagle: I am grateful for that clarification, but the hon. Gentleman does not seem to understand the logic of his own argument. If employers in this country are paying massive wages, as he seemed to suggest, and if our competitors are paying their workers only £ a day, it does not matter what other burdens businesses endure. The Opposition's argument is that we should be competing on the basis of the lowest possible wages and the worst possible conditions.
I congratulate the Government on implementing the working time directive. We are talking about decent minimum standards at work. We are not talking about giving people 10 or 12 weeks' holiday but about giving them three weeks' paid leave. That is not an excessive amount of leave to expect in a working year. We are talking about rest breaks that guarantee 20 minutes' rest, not one or two hours, if people work more than six hours. We are talking about the right not to work more than 48 hours a week unless one agrees to do so. We are also talking about people having the right to one day off a week.
Those provisions are not excessive, and I have not met one business man in my constituency—I talk to many regularly—who thinks that they are. It is clear from the regulations that there are derogations, and opportunities for people who wish to work longer hours to agree to do so. However, we are talking about the basic minimum standards at work which people should expect in a civilised society.
The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) cited the example of a nursing home. Does he not think that care workers will be ground down by their job if they do not have holidays and the right to a day off?

Mr. Redwood: My question on the nursing home was whether, given that what the hon. Lady regards as a

desirable improvement will be introduced, the Government will pay for it. They must, or people will not get the care they need.

Maria Eagle: People will not get the care they need if the work force who are providing that care do not have holidays, cannot afford to take any time off and are being ground into stress-related illness. What are the costs of that? The right hon. Gentleman has made no reference to that.
What we have heard from Opposition Members tonight are further symptoms of their Gradgrind approach to industrial relations. They think that employees can be motivated to work for a living only by threats and big sticks such as fear of dismissal and lousy conditions at work. Anyone who has ever worked in the private sector, as I have, knows that the best way to motivate people at work is to lead by example and have team working and fair treatment. We are talking about basic decency—nobody should object to that.
I have a number of world-class companies in my constituency, including Glaxo Wellcome, Eli Lilley, Medeva Pharma and Ford Jaguar. I regularly meet their representatives, and I often ask them what is the most important reason for their success. Pharmaceutical companies in my constituency were in desperate trouble in the 1980s and almost closed. Unlike 25 per cent. of manufacturing industry in Liverpool, which closed in the first 18 months of Tory government—from 1979 to 1981—those companies managed to stay afloat. When I asked them how they did so, they said that it depended overwhelmingly on the commitment, time and effort of their staff. They accept, as does any decent employer, that one gets those results from people not by grinding their noses into the dirt but by treating them well, taking account of what they think, motivating them and having team working. That is the way of the future, but the Tories have not yet accepted that.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, West and Hessle (Mr. Johnson), who has extensive experience in this field. He said that the Conservatives are living in the past. The Tory legacy shows why the regulations are needed. There are 2.5 million working people in this country who have fewer than three weeks' paid leave a year, an amount which is a basic decency. There are 2.7 million employees who usually work more than 48 hours a week. People cannot do that for long periods without suffering an impact on their health.

Mr. Phil Hope: I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the fact that we shall need to be very vigilant when implementing the working time directive. I have information concerning an unscrupulous employment agency operating in my constituency. One of the people employed by the agency has been advised that, if she does not sign an agreement, she will lose her job. That is clearly an attempt by an unscrupulous agency to bypass the regulations, which are designed to protect workers' rights. We must be ceaselessly vigilant to ensure that such agencies are brought to book.

Maria Eagle: My hon. Friend is right. There are examples in other industries of people who have been put under duress to sign opt-outs. Once the regulations have been implemented and the Government have had an opportunity to monitor their implementation, they should


consider whether duress is being placed on workers to make them opt out. If there is evidence of duress, the Government should ensure that it does not continue.
The sawmill sector has already been referred to. I have an interest in the print trade because my father used to work in it. There are examples in that, trade of federations of employers, such as the Paper Federation and the Corrugated Packaging Federation, amicably reaching agreements with the Graphical, Paper and Media Union for implementing the regulations. That is the way forward. Good employers recognise, as do good employees, that the regulations set basic minimum standards. We should congratulate the Government on implementing them, and we should make sure that bad employers who do not implement them are pursued.

Mr. David Chidgey: I shall be brief because I know that other hon. Members want to contribute to the debate. My colleagues and I support the principles behind the working time regulations because we believe that sensible, well-designed regulations that preserve individual choice and guarantee minimum working conditions are an essential part of a modern industrial democracy.
We disagree with the Government on the manner in which the regulations have been introduced. These ground-breaking regulations are controversial in some sectors of the economy. Industry, commerce and the unions have concerns and fears about the way in which they will be implemented. All those issues could have been dealt with in a proper debate in Parliament at the right time. That is why I introduced early-day motion 1601 not at the end of the Session, but on 23 July 1998, with a full week left before the recess. Sadly, there was no response from the Government.
I have always understood that statutory instruments are used when it is necessary to introduce non-controversial legislation that does not require full debate in Parliament. We know that these regulations are controversial and that industry and commerce have concerns about them. The Government should have made the effort to have a proper debate in Parliament before the regulations were introduced. Many of the problems highlighted by industry and commerce could have been dealt with, and Ministers could have provided clarification in the proper forum. That would have helped the implementation of the regulations to proceed more smoothly.
Officials in the Department of Trade and Industry are still unable to answer basic questions about how the regulations should be implemented. What is working time? What is travel time? The classic example is when one is asked to go from London to a meeting in Edinburgh. If one takes the overnight sleeper to arrive in Edinburgh for a morning meeting, is the travelling part of working time or is it one's own time?

Mr. Hogg: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Chidgey: There is little time left and I must continue.
Another example is when one is asked to take a client out for lunch or dinner. Is that entertainment in one's own time or is it working time? I hope that the Minister can clarify those issues. He must be aware of them. I am sure

that many people have taken him out for lunch and asked him whether they are working or entertaining him. I mean that in the nicest possible way; I do not want to comment on his figure—perhaps there is another reason for that.
The hon. Member for Corby (Mr. Hope) said that agency workers were exploited and told that they would lose their jobs. There is now an obligation on agencies to provide their workers with paid holidays. I agree with that measure, but it has a knock-on effect. Are employers who currently take on agency workers on long-term contracts prepared to recognise the additional costs that the agencies will have to bear through fixed-price contracts? Will they renegotiate? My worry is that Government Departments that use agency workers are reluctant to accommodate the increased costs faced by bona fide good agencies.
I shall give some examples of concerns in my constituency related to whether industries are able to claim exemptions. Eastleigh has three major bakeries serving the region. The baking industry has a long tradition of night working. I am told that it is essential, in order to keep the baking process running on a 24-hour basis to produce the goods that serve the community. I add that night workers in my constituency are not being exploited or coerced into working night shifts, which are well established. Eastleigh has only 3 per cent. unemployment, which, statistically, is zero unemployment, so people are not being forced into those jobs. Will the baking industry be exempt?

Mrs. Ray Michie: My hon. Friend has referred to bakeries, but very little has been said about the fishing industry. We have established that the industry has exemptions, but the Minister said that they were negotiated separately. We need clarification about whether those negotiations have been completed and whether it is absolutely certain that self-employed share fishermen will be exempt. They cannot stick to inflexible working hours when they are doing dangerous fishing work and competing with the elements.

Mr. Chidgey: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am sure that the Minister will respond to it.
Those who want to be able not to work on Sundays are concerned that the 14-day contract laws will weaken their position. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that.
There is confusion among those who will have to work and abide by the regulations. Apart from the need for clarification, the main concern is that unscrupulous employers have the opportunity to find loopholes in the legislation. We have already heard some examples. I have heard of employees being threatened that their contracts will be reviewed and their pay and conditions changed if they do not sign up to an exemption from the 48-hour rule. Many people are employed on conditions that say that they will work for more than 48 hours a week. What will happen to them if they sign up to working 48 hours? Will pay cuts be imposed on them? That is not what we want.
I know of one employer who has suddenly changed the calendar. As far as he is concerned, his employees now work on a 54-week year. That is a neat way of reducing the hours worked per week to less than 48.
There is muddle, confusion and ambiguity. I do not want the regulations to create a field day for lawyers. We have already heard predictions of a spate of


industrial tribunal cases. We do not know how tribunals will react. I am concerned that many firms legitimately trying to operate the regulations correctly could find that they have unintentionally broken the law. We support sensible, clear working time regulations, but the Government have a long way to go to address the genuine concerns of those who will have to operate them.
I would appreciate more guidance from the Minister on how the regulations should be implemented and how the concerns will be addressed. If he cannot do that tonight, I should like a commitment to providing additional information to help people to follow the law.

Mr. Bill Rammell: The working time directive is an important step in creating a fairer, safer and more productive workplace, based on partnership rather than conflict and exploitation. In that spirit of partnership, it is important to make it clear that employees have the right to work beyond 48 hours if they want. We have heard tosh and nonsense from the shadow Secretary of State about the hours that the Speakers or Members of Parliament work. That is an erroneous point.
I am not a dewy-eyed romantic who believes that workers and trade unionists are never wrong. Before the election, I was a senior manager in the public sector and had direct responsibility for some low-paid employees. I understand the frustration caused by the need for adaptability and flexibility in the workplace. However, that adaptability and flexibility needs to be underpinned by a shared commitment and enthusiasm.
In government, the Conservatives rejected that balance and fairness. Their track record in the 1980s was one of dismantling legislation that provided protection for working people, particularly on working hours. The message this evening from the Conservatives is that in no circumstances can social costs borne by an employer to comply with legislation be justified, yet even the Tory party acknowledges that in certain circumstances, employment legislation is necessary—on health and safety and the right to go to an industrial tribunal.
If the principle that there are circumstances in which it is legitimate to have employment legislation is accepted, the issue at stake is how much legal protection for employees is compatible with the need for flexibility, greater productivity and the desire to create jobs. That should be the subject of a mature debate, not the knockabout party posturing that we have heard in the House this evening. The Conservatives are saying that any regulation in the workplace is wrong.
I am not saying that we should return to some of the restrictive practices of the past. However, the pendulum swung too far in favour of the employer against the needs of the employee in the 1980s.

Mr. John Smith: Does my hon. Friend recognise that that pendulum swung back further in some regions than in others? The terms and conditions of employment in Wales are among the worst in the United Kingdom. The proposal will be welcome in the Principality.

Mr. Rammell: Some regions suffered more than others, and the measure will be welcome.

The working time directive must be judged on the balance between the need for the measure and the extent to which it may have adverse consequences. There is certainly a need. Britain works the longest hours in Europe. There is evidence from the CBI that absenteeism in the workplace costs £25 billion a year. The health risks of long working hours are well documented. There are many costs to family life and other factors that need to be taken into account.
Given all those adverse consequences, we have to ask whether long hours bring higher productivity. The answer is emphatically no. We work the longest hours in Europe, yet our productivity levels are far worse than those of Japan, the USA, France and Germany. There is evidence from the engineering industry in the early 1980s that a negotiated reduction in working hours can lead to higher productivity and the creation of further jobs.
Finally, I should like to deal briefly with some of the arguments by the Conservatives this evening. We have been accused of sneaking the legislation out. How can we sneak out a measure that we said explicitly in our manifesto that we intended to deliver? We are accused of caving in to the European Commission. How can we cave in on a measure that we have advocated and said that we intend to implement? That is nonsense. The Conservatives have put forward a series of contradictions. It is just party posturing. We have heard a lot about job losses. If the shadow Secretary of State has any evidence that any of the job losses that we have heard about recently are directly attributable to the 48-hour working week, he should stand up now and justify his comments. He cannot, because he has no evidence.
The measure is about fairness, partnership and creating the conditions for higher productivity. I welcome the fact that the Government are bringing it forward.

Mr. John Gummer: When such a change is proposed, it is first reasonable to ask that the House should have time to discuss it before it is put into operation. I do not find many of the extreme arguments about the measure persuasive, but our ability to discuss the issue is important.
Secondly, if we are to have such legislation, it should be introduced in as user-friendly a way as possible. As hon. Members on both sides know, many people around the country have found the way in which the legislation is being implemented confusing and less user-friendly than it could have been.
Thirdly, while I am not suggesting that the Government should change their view—they fought an election on the issue—I wonder whether they could have argued in the European Community for lighter regulation, even in the areas in which there might have been disagreement between us.
Fourthly, I wonder whether the Government have betrayed their cause. They say that the legislation will not be as onerous as the Conservatives have suggested, because, just as the minimum wage is so low that it has caused great criticism outside, they have made sure that the working time directive has many exemptions. What have we heard from the Liberals? They have asked for exemptions for group after group. If the principle is right, it is extremely difficult to understand why we must rush in to stipulate this exemption or that exemption.
In general, I do not find any objections to the working time proposals; they are perfectly reasonable. I object to the fact that they are enshrined in legislation and regulations that will impose considerable extra cost on business. I do not worry too much about extra costs that result in people getting a better deal. I worry about the extra costs that the Government impose; they are expensive.
Such extra costs are being imposed in areas where there is no possibility of recompense. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) referred to local authorities. He was—I hope, not purposely—misunderstood by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle). He was saying that, if costs rise as a result of the directive, for reasons with which the hon. Lady would be happy, the local authority that has to pay the extra cost of placing old and vulnerable people in nursing homes must either receive more money from the Government or be able to place fewer old and vulnerable people. There may well be a very good answer to this problem; I am sure that the Minister will give it.
I do not understand why we have not had a proper debate before now, so that the reasonable worries and criticisms of people like myself, who are perfectly moderate on the issue, have no antagonism toward the European Union and think that, in general, such directives are not quite as dreadful as they sometimes seem, can be met. It is another example of the House being bypassed—as it has been on almost every issue. That is why I intervened on the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he was in the Chamber for a short period. The Government think that the way in which to do business is to speak to the press and not to Parliament. In that way, the view given to the public is not the one that Parliament has debated, but the one that is spun to the press.
We are a parliamentary democracy. Those of us who believe in parliamentary democracy, even if we are not overwhelmed by this subject, must stand up time and again to demand that the House debates such questions, so that it takes the decisions and is able to help the Government to be a better Government. The press will not help this Government to be a better Government, but the Opposition can if there are debates rather than periods of an hour and a half in which the matter is not sufficiently discussed.

The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Mr. Ian McCartney): I shall try my best in the time available to answer the questions of right hon. and hon. Members. I give a commitment that I will write to them on the specific points that I do not answer in my speech.
I shall first deal with the question of the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) about share fishermen. The issue will be the subject of consultation with the industry. We shall make submissions based on the appropriateness of any measure to specific industries. We did of course exempt share fishermen from the national minimum wage on the basis that they are self-employed. I hope that that assists the hon. Lady. Following consultation on all possible excluded sectors, the Government will make proposals in a way that meets the needs of particular industries.
If the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Chidgey), who raised the issue of bakers, does not mind my saying so, he cannot have his cake and eat it. He cannot on the one hand say that he supports the proposals and on the other say that he wants this or that to be excluded. The baking industry is covered by the regulations.
The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) raised questions in respect of the House and its staff. His comments about the Speaker seemed flippant, given that the holder of that office is not covered by a contract of employment. The staff of both Houses of Parliament are covered by the proposals.
The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) raised questions about parliamentary scrutiny. As a member of the previous Government, he will know that, in 1972, the then Conservative Government passed the European Communities Act, which provides for European directives to be implemented by statutory instrument. All directives, including this one, have been scrutinised by the Select Committee on European Legislation. There has been public consultation on implementation—of two directives, if the previous consultation conducted by the Conservative Administration counts. [Interruption.] I am not running away from the debate. Indeed, 1 am absolutely delighted that we can debate these issues.

Mr. Hogg: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. McCartney: No, I have barely begun my speech.

Mr. Hogg: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. McCartney:: No.
The Government are very proud of the fact that, within 18 months of coming to power, they have ensured that 3 million workers in Britain who did not get a holiday will receive one. Protection is being introduced.
The speech of the right hon. Member for Wokingham was hysterical. It was mostly trivia, and came from a member of a previous Government under whom a business went bust every three minutes, and 10 million people in England alone were unemployed at least once. Yet now he comes to the Dispatch Box and tries to trivialise issues around fairness in the workplace. The debate, and his 25-minute tirade, explain why Labour Members sit on the Government Benches and the Tories are in opposition.

Mr. Redwood: rose—

Mr. McCartney: Listen first of all!
The debate has highlighted the different values of the parties: exploitation versus fairness, no respect versus respect, hire-and-fire culture versus partnership, bad employers versus good employers. The right hon. Gentleman used to work for Baroness Thatcher, who once coined the phrase that there was no such thing as community. He has coined another phrase: there is no such thing as fairness in the workplace. He said clearly that the Conservative party is on the side of poor employment practice. He should answer whether, at the next election, his party would remove the rights that this directive provides for many millions of British workers.

Mr. Redwood: I made it very clear that the Conservative party wants rising standards at work and


better quality of employment. We have our ways of achieving that, which happen to be different from those of the Government. I repeat the question that the Minister does not want to answer. Given that better standards of work in nursing homes will cost money, will the Government pay for those better standards or throw old people on the street?

Mr. McCartney: The Government have put £21 billion extra into health and social care, which were underfunded by the previous Government, who created a crisis in both public and private sector community care. The right hon. Gentleman argues that vulnerable elderly people, disabled people and young children with special needs should be looked after by a work force who are falling on their knees through tiredness from working excessive hours. What a scandal!

Mr. Redwood: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. McCartney: No, I will not give way. The right hon. Gentleman had 25 minutes to speak. He berates the Government but he cannot take the truth when we set it out. The argument he put before the House is quite clear: he would support employers in the care sector who exploit their workers to the point that proper medical and social care needs are put at risk.
This Government believe in fairness. We believe that workers should enjoy basic protection against exploitation by unscrupulous employers. We recognise the fundamental imbalance in the relationship between worker and employer in the workplace where, on some occasions, workers need support. I thank my hon. Friends who have participated in the debate. In their short speeches, they have set out clearly why the legislation is necessary.
We recognise that providing such protection is not necessary for the majority of employees, but that such protection must apply to workers equally. It is important that good employers should not be undercut by bad ones who profit by exploiting their workers. That is not good for competitiveness or the United Kingdom in the long run.
In government, Conservative Members tried to create a Britain that was the sweatshop capital of Europe. We want to be the investment and production centre of Europe, based on high standards. We are therefore committed to creating a flexible labour market that is underpinned by fair minimum standards. The first step was the national minimum wage legislation; implementation of the proposals in the White Paper "Fairness at Work" will follow. Implementation of the working time directive represents another major stepping stone.
The regulations provide seven new rights. No worker can be forced to work more than an average of 48 hours a week. There is a right to paid annual leave of three weeks, rising to four weeks. Would the right hon. Member for Wokingham and his colleagues withdraw that right from the 3 million workers who will benefit from it for the first time? Will there be a wage cut under the Tories, as they withdraw the minimum wage and paid holidays?

Mr. Ian Bruce: rose—

Mr.McCartney: Sit down.
There are rights to rest breaks during the working day. There are rights to rest periods from work, including the right to a day off a week. My God, who would object to someone having a day off a week? [HON. MEMBERS: "They would."] Only the Conservatives. There is special protection for night workers, including a right to health assessments. There is special protection for young workers. Moreover, there is protection from unfair dismissal or detriment for asserting those rights.
The Working Time Regulations 1998 provide protection for the most vulnerable workers and enable them to enjoy rights similar to those that the majority of workers in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe already have. About 90 per cent. of workers in this country already have paid annual leave. Why are the Tories campaigning to prevent the other 10 per cent. having the same rights?
It takes the biscuit when the right hon. Member for Wokingham argues for 25 minutes against the proposals when he has had, typically, 16 weeks leave this year, paid for by the British taxpayer.

Mr. Redwood: indicated dissent

Mr. McCartney: I shall take some examples of cases of the type that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues believe should not be helped. A lady writes to me:
My husband works for a large medical company and has for the past 2 years worked on average 51 hours a week. During this period he has been off sick twice through stress and exploitation".
A contract cleaner in Oxford wrote to the Prime Minister:
I would like in due course, if it's within your power, that we should all have at least two weeks fully paid holiday a year" 
We have given her that commitment.
A lady from Sussex wrote to me about her daughter, who must work long hours and double shifts without proper breaks and is subjected to abuse by the manager. The regulations will combat such exploitation.

Mr. Redwood: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. McCartney: No. The right hon. Gentleman had 25 minutes.

Mr. Redwood: The hon. Gentleman should give way instead of talking fiction.

Mr. McCartney: The right hon. Gentleman does not like to hear the truth. As someone who was a member of a Government who could not tell the truth, he does not like to hear it.

Mr. Ian Bruce: Will the hon. Gentleman give way to someone who has not even had a single minute?

Mr. McCartney: You are not worth a minute. That type of exploitation—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. The Minister has indicated that he will not give way at the moment.

Mr. Bercow: He cannot take it.

Mr. McCartney: Oh, I can take it, all right; I am enjoying myself.
For the first time in a long time, we have a Government who are prepared to stand up for workers' rights against Conservative Members' bully-boy tactics. As we reach the end of the century, we cannot continue the long hours culture—long hours, low pay, low esteem. Employers do not want it; we do not want it. The only employers who want it are the employers who side with the Conservatives—those who want to exploit their work force for an advantage in the marketplace against other employers. This is not just a social issue; there is a strong business case for these proposals.
The right hon. Member for Wokingham spoke about costs. In the last year of the Conservative Government, the Confederation of British Industry estimated that £25 billion was lost to the economy as a result of unregulated absenteeism because of the sweatshop economy that the Conservatives controlled. Another £1.8 billion was lost as a result of high staff turnover—in sectors where the greatest number of jobs is lost due to low status and low morale.
The proposals before us will cut that huge loss to the British economy, and allow employers to compete on quality, but not by pursuing a downward spiral of wages and conditions. The Government are not the only ones who hold that opinion. The consultation was interesting. I quote the views of some employers.
The Institute of Personnel and Development believes that the current proposals represent a significant improvement on those contained in the consultation document issued by the last Government. In many areas, the new document takes account of comments made …on issues that are important to the practicality of the Directive's provisions and their acceptability to both employers and employees.
Manpower, a big agency employer, said:
Most notable for us has been Peter Mandelson's recent arrangement concerning the Government's intentions to respect temporary workers. Giving them the minimum pay, the working time regulations and 'Fairness at Work' achieves a major step forward in establishing minimum standards across the UK work force.
I could go on and on and on, quoting employers who support the proposals.

Mr. Redwood: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. McCartney: No; I am not giving way.
Following the consultation, small business employers telephoned the Department, expressing their pleasure that at last they would compete on a level playing field, instead of against employers who undercut them by exploiting their work force. Good employers in this country overwhelmingly support the proposals.
The right hon. Member for Wokingham spoke about record keeping. There are no over-burdensome bureaucratic record-keeping requirements. Employers need not keep records for entitlements to paid annual leave, rest breaks, daily rest or weekly rest. They need not monitor and record every hour that a worker works. They merely have to be able to show that they have complied with the limits, and how they do so is up to them. [Laughter.] Many employers[Interruption.] Hon. Members should listen. Many employers already have records showing the hours that their workers have worked, and that relates to their normal business practice.
The Health and Safety Executive has said that, in other circumstances, it would be sufficient to have robust management systems that can show when workers are in danger of working close to the limit, and so take steps to monitor those workers more closely.

Mr. Andrew Lansley: rose—

Mr. Gummer: rose—

Mr. McCartney: There is a slight anomaly—a requirement of the directive that hourly records be kept for workers who have agreed to work in excess of the 48-hour weekly working time limit. However, I make it perfectly clear that that is the result of the previous Government's woeful and bungled negotiations in 1993. If anyone is responsible for imposing unnecessary red tape on business, it is the Conservative party, because the Conservatives carried out the negotiations before the general election.

Mr. Gummer: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

Mr. McCartney: No.
I shall make a few points on the timing of implementation of the regulations. Some recent comments—

Mr. Ian Bruce: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Clearly, the Minister is concerned about the time limits that have been artificially set on the debate. Our normal working time in the House continues until 10 o'clock. Do you have any power, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to allow the debate to continue until 10 o'clock, so that we may vote at our usual time, and so that the Minister may give way in the usual fashion?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The length of the debate is regulated by Standing Order. The hon. Gentleman is only wasting more time.

Mr. McCartney: The hon. Gentleman also took up time at the start of the debate in fruitless points of order.
I should like to make a few points in relation to the timing of the implementation. Some recent comments make me wonder whether some Conservative Members have been asleep for the past 18 months. The working time directive is no secret that has been sprung on an unsuspecting world. The directive was agreed under the previous Government in 1993. It was due to be implemented by November 1996. However, all the previous Government did was try to buy time, leaving business uncertain, and spending taxpayers' money on futile attempts in the European Court to prevent the implementation of the directive.
What were the Tories preventing being implemented? Basic minimum standards for 3 million workers in Britain to have the right occasionally to say to their employer, "I am not working 80 or 90 hours a week. I want a break; I want a rest. I think that I am entitled, at the end of the century, to some holiday pay." That is what the previous Government tried to prevent by using taxpayers' money in a court case.
Belatedly, at the end of 1996, forced and humiliated by the European Court, the previous Government issued a vague consultation document that made the situation no clearer. It has been left to the present Government to sort out the mess that they left us. We said in our manifesto that we would implement the directive. The timetable for implementation was announced to Parliament in February. We consulted on detailed proposals, including draft regulations, in April. The finalised regulations were laid before Parliament on 30 July, and came into force on 1 October.
It should be remembered that the implementation directive is already two years overdue because of the incompetence of the previous Government. We all know that the Conservatives, as has been confirmed tonight, do not want people in Britain to be rewarded with proper rest and paid holidays. During the debate, an Opposition Member advocated pay of £2 a day to replace the national minimum wage.
As a legacy of the previous Government, there are workers in Britain who must work 100 hours a week for minimal rates of pay. The working time directive, alongside the national minimum wage, will start to end the cycle of deprivation and exploitation in the work force. The Government are committed to a positive relationship with Europe and take their treaty responsibilities seriously. It has been necessary to take prompt action to rectify the neglect of the previous Administration.
There has recently been correspondence from hon. Members expressing concern about the so-called 12-day working week. I shall clarify the matter now. It is totally misleading to suggest that the regulations diminish the rights of workers or place them in a more vulnerable position in terms of "Sunday Special" arrangements. The regulations include a right to a day off a week, which may be averaged over a period of two weeks. That is a new right. Workers had no such right to a day off until 1 October this year. Therefore, I fail to see how the arrangement could do anything but improve the lot of workers
The right to a day off may be averaged over a period of two weeks to allow flexibility and avoid unnecessary burdens on business. In most cases, rest will be taken on a weekly basis, but certain industries require differing and fluctuating work patterns that are not conducive to such a standardised arrangement. That flexible approach received widespread support in the responses to the consultation on the draft regulations.
The Government believe that the regulations provide minimum fair standards of protection for workers exploited by unscrupulous employers. Such rights have been denied to workers in this country for far too long. That is due to the Opposition, who continue to try to deny others the rights that they enjoy, such as paid leave. here has been ample time for consideration of the measure. I hope that the House will support me in opposing the motion.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Question is—

Mr. Hogg: rose—

Mr. Ian Bruce: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am about to put the Question.

Mr. Ian Bruce: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Surely the hour and a half is not up yet.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hour and a half is very nearly up. If the mover of the motion had chosen to

respond at the end of the debate, that would be in order. The Minister has responded to the debate and I am about to put the Question.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Redwood: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I allowed my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce) to intervene. He has been present for the entire debate and had important points to make, but he has been squeezed out by the Minister. I would regard it as a great courtesy if he were able to make his points.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have already pointed out that it must be the mover of the motion who responds to the debate on that motion.

Mr. Redwood: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have dealt with that point of order and I shall now put the Question.

Mr. Hogg: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I shall put the Question.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 129, Noes 358.

Division No. 368]
[8.43 pm


AYES


Amess, David
Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman


Ancram, Rt Hon Michael
Fox, Dr Liam


Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James
Gale, Roger


Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)
Garnier, Edward


Bercow, John
Gibb, Nick


Beresford, Sir Paul
Gill, Christopher


Blunt, Crispin
Gillan, Mrs Cheryl


Body, Sir Richard
Gorman, Mrs Teresa


Boswell, Tim
Gray, James


Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)
Green, Damian


Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia
Greenway, John


Brady, Graham
Grieve, Dominic


Brazier, Julian
Gummer, Rt Hon John


Brooke, Rt Hon Peter
Hammond, Philip


Browning, Mrs Angela
Hawkins, Nick


Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)
Hayes, John


Burns, Simon
Heald, Oliver


Butterfill, John
Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David


Cash, William
Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas


Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)
Horam, John



Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)


Chope, Christopher
Hunter, Andrew


Clappison, James
Jack, Rt Hon Michael


Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)
Jenkin, Bernard


Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey
Johnson Smith, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey


Collins, Tim



Colvin, Michael
Key, Robert


Cormack, Sir Patrick
King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)


Cran, James
Laing, Mrs Eleanor


Curry, Rt Hon David
Lait, Mrs Jacqui


Davies, Quentin (Grantham)
Lansley, Andrew


Day, Stephen
Leigh, Edward


Duncan, Alan
Letwin, Oliver


Duncan Smith, Iain
Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)


Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter
Lidington, David


Evans, Nigel
Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)


Faber, David
Loughton, Tim


Fabricant, Michael
Luff, Peter


Flight, Howard
MacGregor, Rt Hon John


Forth, Rt Hon Eric
McIntosh, Miss Anne






Maclean, Rt Hon David
Steen, Anthony


McLoughlin, Patrick
Streeter, Gary


Major, Rt Hon John
Swayne, Desmond


Malins, Humfrey
Syms, Robert


Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian
Tapsell, Sir Peter


May, Mrs Theresa
Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)


Moss, Malcolm
Taylor, John M (Solihull)


Nicholls, Patrick
Taylor, Sir Teddy


Norman, Archie
Townend, John


Ottaway, Richard
Tredinnick, David


Page, Richard
Trend, Michael


Paice, James
Tyrie, Andrew


Paterson, Owen
Walter, Robert


Pickles, Eric
Waterson, Nigel


Prior, David
Whitney, Sir Raymond



Whittingdale, John


Randall, John
Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann


Redwood, Rt Hon John
Wilkinson, John


Robathan, Andrew
Willetts, David


Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)
Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)


Rowe, Andrew (Faversham)
Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)


Ruffley, David
Woodward, Shaun


St Aubyn, Nick
Yeo, Tim


Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian
Young, Rt Hon Sir George


Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)



Spicer, Sir Michael
Tellers for the Ayes:


Spring, Richard
Sir David Madel and Mrs. Caroline Spelman.


Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John





NOES


Abbott, Ms Diane
Caborn, Richard


Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)
Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)


Ainger, Nick
Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)


Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)
Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife)


Alexander, Douglas
Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)


Allan, Richard
Campbell-Savours, Dale


Allen, Graham
Canavan, Dennis


Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)
Caplin, Ivor


Armstrong, Ms Hilary
Casale, Roger


Ashton, Joe
Caton, Martin


Atkins, Charlotte
Chaytor, David


Austin, John
Chidgey, David


Baker, Norman
Chisholm, Malcolm


Banks, Tony
Clapham, Michael


Barnes, Harry
Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)


Barron, Kevin
Clark, Dr Lynda


Bayley, Hugh
(Edinburgh Pentlands)


Beard, Nigel
Clark, Paul (Gillingham)


Begg, Miss Anne
Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)


Beggs, Roy
Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)


Beith, Rt Hon A J
Clelland, David


Bell, Martin (Tatton)
Clwyd, Ann


Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)
Coaker, Vernon


Benn, Rt Hon Tony
Coffey, Ms Ann


Bennett, Andrew F
Cohen, Harry


Benton, Joe
Coleman, Iain


Bermingham, Gerald
Colman, Tony


Berry, Roger
Connarty, Michael


Best, Harold
Cook, Frank (Stockton N)


Betts, Clive
Cook, Rt Hon Robin (Livingston)


Blears, Ms Hazel
Cooper, Yvette


Blizzard, Bob
Corbett, Robin


Boateng, Paul
Cotter, Brian


Borrow, David
Cousins, Jim


Bradley, Keith (Withington)
Cranston, Ross


Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)
Crausby, David


Bradshaw, Ben
Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)


Brand, Dr Peter
Cryer, John (Hornchurch)


Brinton, Mrs Helen
Cummings, John


Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)
Cunliffe, Lawrence


Brown, Russell (Dumfries)
Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack (Copeland)


Browne, Desmond



Buck, Ms Karen
Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)


Burden, Richard
Cunningham, Ms Roseanna (Perth)


Butler, Mrs Christine



Byers, Rt Hon Stephen
Dalyell, Tam





Darvill, Keith
Jenkins, Brian


Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)
Johnson, Alan (Hull W& Hessle)


Davidson, Ian
Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)


Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)



Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H)
Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)


Dawson, Hilton
Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)


Dean, Mrs Janet
Jones, Helen (Warrington N)


Dismore, Andrew
Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)


Donohoe, Brian H



Doran, Frank
Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)


Dowd, Jim
Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)


Drew, David
Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)


Drown, Ms Julia
Jowell, Ms Tessa


Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)
Keeble, Ms Sally


Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)
Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)


Edwards, Huw
Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)


Efford, Clive
Keetch, Paul


Ellman, Mrs Louise
Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)


Ennis, Jeff
Khabra, Piara S


Ewing, Mrs Margaret
Kidney, David


Fatchett, Derek
Kilfoyle, Peter


Fearn, Ronnie
King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)


Field, Rt Hon Frank
Kingham, Ms Tess


Fitzpatrick, Jim
Kumar, Dr Ashok


Fitzsimons, Lorna
Ladyman, Dr Stephen


Flint, Caroline
Lawrence, Ms Jackie


Follett, Barbara
Laxton, Bob


Foster, Rt Hon Derek
Lepper, David


Foster, Michael J (Worcester)
Leslie, Christopher


Foulkes, George
Levitt, Tom


Fyfe, Maria
Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)


Galloway, George
Lewis, Terry (Worsley)


Gapes, Mike
Linton, Martin


Gardiner, Barry
Livingstone, Ken


Gerrard, Neil
Livsey, Richard


Gilroy, Mrs Linda
Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)


Godman, Dr Norman A
Llwyd, Elfyn


Goggins, Paul
Lock, David


Golding, Mrs Llin
McAllion, John


Gordon, Mrs Eileen
McAvoy, Thomas


Gorrie, Donald
McCabe, Steve


Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)
McCafferty, Ms Chris


Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)
McCartney, Ian (Makerfield)


Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
McDonagh, Siobhain


Grocott, Bruce
Macdonald, Calum


Gunnell, John
McDonnell, John


Hain, Peter
McGuire, Mrs Anne


Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)
McIsaac, Shona


Hall, Patrick (Bedford)
McKenna, Mrs Rosemary


Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)
Mackinlay, Andrew


Hanson, David
McLeish, Henry


Heal, Mrs Sylvia
McNamara, Kevin


Healey, John
McNulty, Tony


Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)
MacShane, Denis


Hepburn, Stephen
Mactaggart, Fiona


Heppell, John
McWalter, Tony


Hesford, Stephen
McWilliam, John


Hewitt, Ms Patricia
Mahon, Mrs Alice


Hinchliffe, David
Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter


Hodge, Ms Margaret
Marek, Dr John


Hoey, Kate
Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)


Hood, Jimmy
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)


Hope, Phil
Marshall-Andrews, Robert


Hopkins, Kelvin
Martlew, Eric


Howarth, George (Knowsley N)
Maxton, John


Howells, Dr Kim
Meale, Alan


Hoyle, Lindsay
Merron, Gillian


Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)
Michael, Alun


Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)
Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)


Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)
Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)


Hurst, Alan
Miller, Andrew


Hutton, John
Mitchell, Austin


Iddon, Dr Brian
Moonie, Dr Lewis


Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)
Moore, Michael


Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)
Moran, Ms Margaret


Jamieson, David
Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)






Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W)
Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)


Morley, Elliot
Smith, John (Glamorgan)


Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)
Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)


Mountford, Kali
Snape, Peter


Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie
Soley, Clive


Mullin, Chris
Southworth, Ms Helen


Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)
Spellar, John


Naysmith, Dr Doug
Squire, Ms Rachel


Norris, Dan
Steinberg, Gerry


O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)
Stevenson, George


O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)
Stewart, David (Inverness E)


O'Hara, Eddie
Stewart, Ian (Eccles)


Olner, Bill
Stinchcombe, Paul


O'Neill, Martin
Stoate, Dr Howard


Öpik, Lembit
Stringer, Graham


Osborne, Ms Sandra
Stuart, Ms Gisela


Palmer, Dr Nick
Sutcliffe, Gerry


Pearson, Ian
Swinney, John


Perham, Ms Linda
Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)


Pickthall, Colin



Pike, Peter L
Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)


Plaskitt, James
Taylor, David (NW Leics)


Pollard, Kerry
Temple-Morris, Peter


Pound, Stephen
Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)


Powell, Sir Raymond
Timms, Stephen


Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)
Tipping, Paddy


Prescott, Rt Hon John
Todd, Mark


Primarolo, Dawn
Touhig, Don


Prosser, Gwyn
Trickett, Jon


Purchase, Ken
Truswell, Paul


Quin, Ms Joyce
Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)


Quinn, Lawrie
Twigg, Derek (Halton)


Rammell, Bill
Vaz, Keith


Rapson, Syd
Vis, Dr Rudi


Raynsford, Nick
Wallace, James


Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)
Walley, Ms Joan


Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)
Ward, Ms Claire


Roche, Mrs Barbara
Wareing, Robert N


Rogers, Allan
Watts, David


Rooker, Jeff
Webb, Steve


Rooney, Terry
White, Brian


Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)
Whitehead, Dr Alan


Roy, Frank
Wicks, Malcolm


Ruddock, Ms Joan
Wigley, Rt Hon Dafydd


Russell, Bob (Colchester)
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)


Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)



Ryan, Ms Joan
Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)


Salter, Martin
Willis, Phil


Sanders, Adrian
Wilson, Brian


Sarwar, Mohammad
Winnick, David


Savidge, Malcolm
Winterton, Ms Rosie (DoncasterC)


Sawford, Phil
Wise, Audrey


Sedgemore, Brian
Wood, Mike


Shaw, Jonathan
Woolas, Phil


Sheerman, Barry
Worthington, Tony


Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
Wray, James


Shipley, Ms Debra
Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)


Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)
Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)


Singh, Marsha
Wyatt, Derek


Skinner, Dennis



Smith, Angela (Basildon)
Tellers for the Noes:


Smith, Miss Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)
Mr. Greg Pope and Mr. Keith Hill.

Question accordingly negatived.

Russia

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]

Mr. Paul Keetch: I am pleased to initiate my second Adjournment debate since my election on an international subject that is very close to my heart. I chose to debate this topic tonight as a result of an Inter-Parliamentary Union trip that I made to Russia last June. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) led the trip, to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and I am delighted to see several members of that delegation in the Chamber tonight. The right hon. Gentleman and some other members of the delegation were returning to Russia, but it was my first visit to that country. They were able to see the changes that had taken place since their previous visits, while I could only look on in wonder.
To understand the economic crisis now befalling Russia, one must understand the political crisis. If one were to ask schoolchildren the date of the Russian revolution, they would answer "1917". However, the revolution of perestroika, begun in the late 1980s by Mikhail Gorbachev, is far and away the greatest change that Russian society has seen this century. That revolution brought so much political change so quickly that the political crisis that followed it has now led to economic catastrophe.

Mr. Nigel Jones: Would my hon. Friend care to speculate on what the history books will make of Mikhail Gorbachev? Some people see him as the man who changed the world, but the Russian people who voted in the last presidential election gave him only 1 per cent. of the vote—so they are not happy with him. I had the privilege of meeting Mikhail Gorbachev in 1993 when he visited my constituency. What does my hon. Friend make of the long-term view of what Mikhail Gorbachev has done to a once great super-power?

Mr. Keetch: I think that Mikhail Gorbachev will be remembered slightly better by history than the present president, President Yeltsin. Russia is the one place in the world where I would not advocate that people vote Liberal Democrat. It is somewhat embarrassing every time a Liberal Democrat visits that country.
The revolution that brought so much political change has led to an economic crisis in Russia. In short, the transition that the United Kingdom effected over hundreds of years—the transition from absolute ruler to democracy—has taken place in Russia in under a decade. It is no wonder that there are problems. It is interesting to examine what has changed. Russia has gone from a super-power surrounded by client states, with power vested in a few people, to a country by itself. In doing so, it has lost many of its more prosperous and plentiful territories. It has been stripped of much of its international pride and position. It has seen the dismantling of the military economic machine that used to drive it. In short, Russia is now regarded by the world as the loser in the cold war.
With no democratic tradition to fall back on, it is not surprising that, in 10 years, such dramatic change has been less than smooth. The reforms that President


Gorbachev introduced, ending in the coup that almost toppled him, resulted in the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. The changes to the constitution forced upon parliament by President Yeltsin ended in his troops shelling Parliament in October 1993. The subsequent rivalry between the Duma and the president continues today. These are some of the factors that have formed a breeding ground for economic chaos.
Boris Yeltsin's health, too, declining during this period, has led to a situation today which would have been, for many Russians, unthinkable only a few years ago—a Russian president who is the butt of jokes at home and abroad, a living embarrassment to all Russians. It is no exaggeration to say that the Russian economy today is as sick as the Russian president.
It is sometimes difficult to make comparisons, but the output of Russia now is barely half what it was in 1989. Officially, central Government expenditure this year was set at 500 billion roubles, with revenue coming in at just 367 billion roubles. In other words, that is Government expenditure of £17.5 billion with an income of just £13 billion. That deficit would be bad enough, but in reality nothing like that revenue has been achieved. Add to that the crippling debt burden of 121 billion roubles a year, and the crisis was inevitable.

Mr. Lembit Öpik: Would my hon. Friend agree that the sad tale that he describes for Russia is almost the opposite of the success stories of the recovering economies such as Estonia, which broke free from the Soviet Union? Does he agree that, as Estonia develops, links with western Europe should be built? At the same time, my hon. Friend will know that there are concerns in the Baltic states that Russia might cast an ominous eye again. Does he agree with the adage that people who live in glasnost should not throw Estonians?

Mr. Keetch: My hon. Friend is well known for his sense of humour and Estonian connections. I have visited the Baltic states, and have been to Lithuania on two occasions. I know of the enormous success and leaps forward of some of the Baltic economies. Estonia is a shining example, and we should certainly support its economy.
The crisis in Russia is far from over. The Morgan Stanley Dean Witter brief on the Russian economy recently highlighted industrial production in August down by 8.5 per cent. The economic growth forecasts that it was suggesting, being at the bottom range of minus 2 per cent. for 1998 and 1999, are being revised downwards to minus 5 per cent. for this year and minus 10 per cent. for next year.
In the cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg that I and my colleagues visited, the semblance of Russian economic prosperity exists. There are McDonald's restaurants, expensive shops and advertising, all features of the Russian scene that are new over the past few years. However, it is not necessary to go far from the city centres to come across vast Soviet-style tenement blocks where millions of people live. These are huge, cold and dark buildings, often with no electricity or water supply. These are the hovels which ordinary Russians call home.
In St. Petersburg alone, the population has fallen by more than 600,000 since the early 1990s. People have moved into the country to try to find food. Those who

stay have their own allotments. They try to grow what they can. However, the search for food is a desperate one. Life in the provinces is even worse than that in the cities.
Anybody who has seen a second world war film, especially about prisoner of war camps, will have heard about Red Cross parcels. Yet today the Red Cross is trying to launch a £10 million appeal for food for Russia. It is distributing Red Cross food parcels to people who cannot feed themselves in Russia. This once great super-power now receives international food aid.
Medicine, too, is in short supply. Shortages of basic medicine have led to a huge rise in diseases that we in the west long thought had disappeared. Poor diet and even starvation have led to huge numbers of Russians dying from economic neglect. Last year alone, more than 10,000 prisoners in Russian gaols died of illness. The life expectancy of the Russian male is now below 60. In all, last year, almost 25.000 Russians died of tuberculosis, and another 2 million are infected. Even so, in Moscow four hospitals are kept just for Members of Parliament, bureaucrats and army chiefs, ensuring that the elite remain healthy. Even bank robbers in Russia now go short. In a recent break-in at the Vimpel bank in central Moscow, thieves got away with the total takings of just 13,000 roubles—about £120.
Perhaps the biggest and most widely talked about of the economic problems is the late payment of salaries. Wage arrears in the public sector are estimated to be around £750 million, resulting in despair for hundreds of thousands of families. Doctors, nurses and teachers go unpaid. In Russia today, people strike not for better pay, but simply to be paid.
The story is similar for state pensioners, and even in the armed forces salaries are sometimes not paid. Wage arrears were supposed to have been stopped last July, but in reality still exist. Stories of soldiers selling off their weapons and equipment to terrorists for money to live are not exaggerated. Not surprisingly, that has led to huge discontent in the army—no wonder, in a country where officers and their families sleep four to a room.
In 1997 alone, 304 murders were recorded in the Russian armed forces, and, following the Chechen military debacle which shook Russian military confidence, the economic crisis has hit the once proud Red Army. An army that once defeated Hitler's Nazis is now at rock bottom. There is no money for research and development, training is minimal, and exercise is unknown. Reductions in manpower in the Russian armed forces are huge, with some 300,000 officers and non-commissioned officers a year being made redundant. It is interesting that the Interior Ministry troops who were so loyal to President Yeltsin in 1993 are still being paid, but no one today believes that they would once again rush to his aid should he need it.
Even the environment is against the Russian economy. In one region of southern Russia, Kalmykia, more than 25 villages have had to be abandoned in the past 20 years due to the spread of a desert. An area the size of Belgium is now sand.
What can we do? One thing that anyone who knows Russia will tell us is that the Russian people have long memories. Other countries may abandon Russia and other Governments pull their people out, but we in the United Kingdom must not. We owe it to the Russian people and to world stability to ensure that the Russian foray into


democracy is a success. We must preserve the rule of law in Russia, because, if we do not, we shall simply see the rule of terror.

Helen Jones: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in Russia there is a great sense of friendship towards Britain, and that, as one of the major problems affecting the Russian economy is massive tax evasion and the influence of organised crime, that is one area in which that friendship could be used to assist the Russian people to tackle those problems in order to move their economy forward?

Mr. Keetch: The hon. Lady is absolutely right. She well knows the plight of the Russian people, having, like me, been a member of the IPU delegation. I am not necessarily calling for more monetary aid, but the kind of schemes that she has suggested—she is involved in schemes with the British Council—would do much to help support Russia
When we were there, we saw the people who might lead Russia should the Russian foray into democracy fail—former Communists who believe that the Soviet-style planned economy did work, nationalists who believe that President Yeltsin illegally gave independence to Russian territories and who want those territories back. We even met liberals who talk about NATO expansion as a real threat to mother Russia. Madam Speaker has similarly returned from Russia, having met many of the same people.
I did not initiate this debate to obtain answers, because we may not be able to give them, but the House must make it known to democrats throughout Russia that we will not abandon them. Our Government must re-emphasise their pledge to support British programmes in Russia, such as the excellent ones run by the British Council, to help democracy survive. The British Council is now looking at close links between our two nations, including links between schools, and establishing information technology links with schools and exchanges for Russian teachers and children. The Government must support those schemes. We must encourage more business and trade with Russia. Most of all, our foreign policy must support the pro-reformers and those who want democracy to survive.
Imagine the prize of success for Russia—a country that is democratic, reformed and economically buoyant. That prize should be our principal foreign policy objective.

Mr. Adrian Sanders: I gave my hon. Friend notice before the debate that I might intervene. Given the enormity of the problems, does he agree that no nation state alone can offer assistance, and that the best hope lies in the aid programmes to which we can contribute through the European Union?

Mr. Keetch: My hon. Friend is right. Britain cannot solve the problems by itself, but it is important to remember that it has a special relationship with Russia. The Russian people are understandably suspicious of the Germans, the Japanese and the Americans. They would welcome British involvement, and I hope that the Government will take a lead in that.
The price of failing to support the Russian economy is huge. In its negotiations in the forthcoming weeks, the International Monetary Fund must not seek to impose on the Russian Government the terms normally accepted for IMF support, because Russia could not take them.

Mr. David Kidney: The hon. Gentleman is developing an interesting and powerful speech. On IMF support, the conditionality that has been imposed has been to collect taxes that are lawfully due. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones) referred to that a moment ago. Does he accept the fundamental point that taxes lawfully raised must be paid if Russia is to be the success that he wants it to be?

Mr. Keetch: I certainly accept that, but I hope that the IMF will not only put in place conditions but provide practical support that will allow Russia to meet those conditions. Russia simply cannot meet those conditions by itself. As the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones) said, it needs our practical help and experience in collecting those taxes.
History has a nasty habit of repeating itself. We all know what happened to Germany in the 1930s after it had been made to pay too high a price for losing the first world war. Let us not expect Russia to pay too high a price for losing the cold war. The world has never known a super-power with a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons that cannot pay its employees. The House and the Government must get the message across to Russia that we will not let it give up on democracy. If it does, the whole world will suffer.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Ms Patricia Hewitt): I thank the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch) for his initiative in introducing this debate, and congratulate him on his excellent speech and evident interest in, and concern and knowledge about, the conditions in Russia. His description of the state of the economy and of Russian society is absolutely right. As he said, gross domestic product has fallen by 10 per cent. in the past 12 months, inflation has risen by 50 per cent., and tax revenue, which was never particularly good, is shrinking rapidly. Clearly, barter and non-payment are rapidly on the rise. Perhaps most distressing of all is the catastrophic drop in life expectancy, particularly among men, since the fall of communism, exacerbated by the current economic crisis.
The position is as serious and distressing to everyone as the hon. Gentleman has described. However, it must be understood that responsibility for tackling the problem lies, as it must, with the Russian Government. We cannot guarantee law and order, or economic stability and all the other things that Russia needs. It is for the Russian Government to take a lead and to implement the policies which will bring real economic and social benefits to a country in immense distress.
The priority is clear: Russia needs to develop a coherent macro-economic framework and to get its public finances under control, because without that, it cannot regain economic stability. It certainly has to introduce tax and expenditure reform, and needs to restructure its banking sector, because there is near-bankruptcy or worse among many of its banks. It needs to close insolvent enterprises,


and to tackle the problem of barter and non-payment. It of course has to develop and try to enforce the essential, the basic, legal and institutional framework of a market economy, because that is clearly missing.
The hon. Member for Hereford and my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones) mentioned the excellent work of the British Council. As a short-lived former vice-chair of that organisation, I also pay tribute to the work that it has been doing in know-how transfer, and in helping to build that capacity within Russia.
The Government are not only actively monitoring the situation in Russia, but are in regular contact with our partners there, in the G7 and in the European Union. The Russian Government are, however, still formulating their economic policies. We and our international partners—this cannot be done by one country alone—remain ready to support and work with Russia, and with its Government, in support of sustained efforts towards stabilisation and reform.
As the hon. Member for Hereford said, the international community must be ready to back International Monetary Fund financial assistance, but that assistance must be given in support of credible and sustained efforts by Russia towards stabilisation and economic reform. There is no point in supporting policies which will not work.
We, and our partners in the EU and the G7, are more than ready to help with this process, and we are re-focusing the technical assistance programmes accordingly. The international community also needs to continue to monitor the situation on food supplies and on medical supplies. If there is clear need, we must and will be ready to ensure that humanitarian assistance is provided.
I should like to connect the situation in Russia, which the hon. Member for Hereford described so vividly, with the second half of the title of the debate—the world economy. The direct effects of the crisis in Russia are relatively small—before the collapse, Russia contributed about 1 per cent. of total world output, and accounted for 1.5 per cent. of world trade—but that is not the case for certain countries. Ukraine, which does a quarter of its trade with Russia, was particularly badly affected, and remains so even today.
There is also a direct impact on those banks, especially in Germany, which were severely exposed to the situation in Russia, but the indirect effects on the rest of the world economy—the contagion of the collapse in Russia and the default on debt—are of immense concern, to the hon. Member for Hereford, his hon. Friends and all of us.
Japan, the world's second largest economy, is expected to contract by 2.5 per cent. this year, and that following several years of low growth. Another region—which, hitherto, had been the growth engine of the world economy—also faces unprecedented declines. We are all affected, and not only for humanitarian reasons. We are dependent on each other's goods and services—the Asian crisis has cut United Kingdom exports to Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand by between 50 and 60 per cent. in a single year—and, as we have seen over recent months, a weak financial system in one country then threatens the financial systems of other countries. We are having to deal with the consequences of the financial turmoil and the destabilising lack of transparency.
We are faced with a crisis that grew because of weak, under-supervised financial institutions in developing economies, and which became global because of deficiencies in supervision and in risk management, even in developed economies. It became a prolonged crisis because the initial policy responses were more suitable for over-extended pubic sectors than for over-exposed private sectors.
Not only in Russia, but across a large part of the world, this crisis has become a human tragedy for millions of people. They are the victims of inadequate social protection. We must deal with the situation in Russia, and continue to work with the Russian Government to try to support efforts to achieve first political stabilisation and then economic and social stabilisation. We must also deal with the problems in the global economy. We must begin by addressing the short-term problems. We should recognise that the balance of risks has changed, and act accordingly.
Monetary authorities around the world continue to be vigilant. Crucially, G7 countries have committed themselves to creating or sustaining the conditions for demand-led growth and financial stability in their own economies. In addition, we must address the underlying longer-term problems that have contributed to the current crisis in Russia, Japan and in the world economy. That requires an international financial architecture that is suited to today's global economy, not to yesterday's.
For 50 years, the world economy has had policies for regulation, supervision, transparency and stability that were devised and developed for a world of relatively sheltered national economies with limited capital markets. We must now create procedures for supervision, transparency, regulation and stability that are as sophisticated as the markets with which they have to work, and try to prevent the collision of inadequately regulated global capital flows with inadequately developed and supervised national banking systems, which has been a common feature of the crisis in many countries.

Mr. Michael Colvin: I hesitate to intervene, but last week I was in Moscow, and I had the opportunity to talk to members of the Duma about the current crisis in Russia. They said, "It's not money we want from the west. We need to know how we can stop our wealth draining out of our country." That is the problem at the moment. It is like pouring water into a colander. Last year, 40 per cent. of Russia's oil went on to the black market, without anyone knowing where it had gone to. They need such assistance more than some high-flown IMF package which will impose conditions that they will not be able to comply with.
Trade is more important than anything. Over the years, the central European free trade agreement has worked well for the countries of central Europe. The sooner we extend that eastwards into Russia, whose centre of gravity is European, the better it will be, not only for Russia, but for the rest of Europe and the rest of the world.

Ms Hewitt: The hon. Gentleman makes two extremely important points. He is right about the importance of trying to re-establish and to develop trading relationships with Russia, and to draw it into that broader European family. That in turn depends on securing a financial ands


legal infrastructure for its economy. As he rightly says, the wealth and income that they ought to have in Russia is draining out faster than they can replenish it. That is an issue for those who might wish, or be able, to trade with Russia, and to benefit from such a trading relationship. The trading relationship itself will require an adequate economic and legal infrastructure—in other words, the fundamentals of a market economy in Russia.
I agree with the hon. Member for Romsey (Mr. Colvin). It does not come down simply to the question of a financial architecture and sorting out Russia's banking system, although that is important; it also comes down to technical assistance. It comes down to the help that we can give the Russians to secure the basics of a functioning market economy with a functioning legal and contractual system, and with something resembling an efficient tax collection system.
Unfortunately, Russia must act on many different fronts at the same time. I do not think that it is possible to work on the trading end of the relationship without also working with Russia to put in place the basics of the economic infrastructure that it so badly needs.
That, in a sense, is precisely the point of what we and our partners in the G7 and the European Union are trying to do to establish a stronger, modernised global financial and trading architecture. National Governments, helped by international institutions, need to set clear, clearly understood, long-term policy objectives that will build confidence and establish their credibility. That applies to all countries, whether they are beginning the process of creating and developing market economies or are a long way down the line. That is why the Government have welcomed the International Monetary Fund's new code of good practice on fiscal policy, and look forward to similar codes of conduct on monetary and financial policy.
The new economy, however, also requires much more transparency in the private sector. That is why we are urging the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to conclude rapidly its work on a code of conduct for corporate governance.
Events in Russia—and, indeed, throughout the world—in recent months have identified inadequacies in our understanding of the interrelationship between financial markets and between countries, inadequacies in the quality of risk assessment, and gaps in the international regulatory system. There is an urgent need for us to look at the scope for a new Standing Committee and for global financial regulation.
We must also continue to be vigilant in regard to the threat of protectionism. It is perhaps most likely to arise in relation to the countries of south-east Asia, but—as the hon. Member for Hereford pointed out—it is crucial in terms of our own relationships with the countries of eastern Europe. We need to work with the World Trade Organisation to ensure that there is a proper start to the next round of trade negotiations, so that we can take the necessary steps to ensure openness in trade.
Last night—also in response to the Liberal Democrats—my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and I outlined the measures that the Government were taking, and had taken, to put the United Kingdom on to a path of stability. They are all the more important given the instability in the world economy.
One of the trigger points for that instability is the crisis in Russia to which the hon. Member for Hereford has so eloquently drawn attention. I assure him, and the House, that—both on behalf of this country and in co-operation with our colleagues in the G7 and the European Union—we will continue to do everything possible to assist the Russian Government to put their country on to the path of economic, political and social stability that its people so badly need.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes past Nine o'clock.